


Cross Training

by Quasar



Series: Criss-Cross [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, The Sentinel
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-16
Updated: 2010-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-10 14:24:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasar/pseuds/Quasar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Explorations and discoveries, a wormhole to Earth, a spy, a new drug, attempted escape, daring rescue.  Also, some schmoop, a hint of smut, some silliness, and lots of talking over food.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cross Training

**Author's Note:**

> Written for NaNoWriMo 2006. Read previous stories in the series first.

John's first week as a member of the Atlantis expedition was hectic. They might not be in contact with Earth to file paperwork, but they had to be _ready_ to file it at any time. Weir listed him as a civilian consultant, with a pay rate three times what he'd been making in San Diego and a very nice retirement package that he'd probably never get to take advantage of. Room, board, and medical benefits were included as well, which made John smirk. He composed a resignation email (only subtly insulting by the time he finished the third draft), filled out various electronic forms (paper was very much at a premium), and discussed his record and his experience with Weir, O'Neill, Caldwell, and Ellison.

That was a little strange by itself, since John was more accustomed to prospective employers who'd already read the worst about him and were, in the best cases, willing to listen to him try to make it sound better. Here he had to deliver the bad news himself, but he found he wasn't really tempted to color the truth. He wasn't going to be at the mercy of the military officers, and Weir didn't seem to care much about his history of problems with authority. O'Neill and Ellison weren't bothered by it either, but Caldwell made faces as if he were sucking on a lemon. John detailed the exact combination of disobedience and insufficient discretion about his sexual preferences that had gotten him kicked out. It was amusing to see Caldwell's lips crimp tighter at the casual admission of bisexuality. Weir, with eyes crinkled humorously, just pursed her mouth as if trying not to laugh and said it wouldn't be a problem.

The command shake-up was beginning to resolve itself. Apparently, ever since the Daedalus had arrived last year with Colonel Caldwell aboard, he'd been the titular head of the military on Atlantis, responsible for all the organizational and administrative stuff. But since he'd been injured during a big battle with the Wraith when he first arrived, Captain O'Neill, as his exec, did all of the heavy work and a lot of the command work as well, whenever Caldwell had to recover from another medical procedure. That was the state of things before Colonel Sheppard had brought several more people through the wormhole with him.

Out of that group, John wasn't Air Force any longer, two were scientists (McKay and Jackson), two were lieutenants (Cadman and Hailey), and only two had high enough rank to threaten Captain O'Neill's position. Colonel Mitchell, along with Dr. Jackson, apparently had orders to return to Earth at the earliest opportunity to help out with some alien threat there (which John really hadn't wanted to know about -- apparently the entire planet had been in jeopardy more than once in the past decade while half its nations had been distracted by wars with the other half). That left Major Lorne, currently in the infirmary recovering from a bullet wound and a concussion, as the only one putting O'Neill's authority in jeopardy.

There was some discussion (which John wasn't involved in, but Atlantis was rife with rumor) of different ways to address the problem. There might be various divisions for Lorne or O'Neill to be put in charge of, or Caldwell, as the ranking officer, could simply choose to keep O'Neill on as his exec so long as O'Neill's orders didn't directly conflict with Lorne's. Atlantis had comparable numbers of jarheads (from the original expedition) and airmen (from the derelict Daedalus), and it was possible each officer might get command of one group. But most people seemed to think it was likely O'Neill would get a second field promotion to Major, to be confirmed when contact with Earth was re-established. That would still leave Lorne with seniority, but technically the two would be on equal footing and Caldwell could give them whatever assignments he liked.

John liked O'Neill just fine and enjoyed the training flights they made where O'Neill showed him some of the finer points of making a Gateship do tricks, but he still didn't get the prevailing worshipful attitude about the man. "What's the deal with O'Neill?" he finally asked Rodney one morning over breakfast (two plates of baked goods and salty, pinkish eggs which he had brought to Rodney's lab since all the scientists seemed determined to kill themselves with overwork). "It seems like everyone, both Marines and Air Force, thinks O'Neill should be in command for real, and not just, you know, in a practical sense. Is it because his father's a general?"

Rodney blinked at him over a mouthful of toast. "General O'Neill'f not hiv fadder," he lisped, spraying scrumbs. He chewed and swallowed hastily. "Not really, anyway. Hasn't anyone told you about this yet?"

"Everyone I ask just says it's a long story. Including you," John pointed out.

"Oh. Well, O'Neill -- our O'Neill -- is actually a clone of the original."

John stared. "A clone. Of General O'Neill?"

"Yes. Well, he was a colonel at the time of the cloning, but, yeah, same guy. It was done by a renegade Asgard."

"The Roswell grays? Wait, aren't they supposed to be good guys?" John had been reading up on the history of the Stargate program and the Atlantis expedition. Some of the accounts were pretty hair-raising -- though Rodney would have said John didn't need any help in that particular area.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "See, that would be what made this one a _renegade_. He was experimenting on humans -- not for some sort of evil plan, but actually to see if we were ready to receive more knowledge and advanced technology from the Asgard. The others disagreed with his methods and carted him off to face their justice system, or whatever. But anyway, this is how the Asgard reproduce -- by cloning themselves and then transferring the older one's memory and identity into the clone. He was trying to do that with O'Neill."

"So you're saying the clone has all the general's memories."

"Or at least the colonel's memories. Of course, by that time O'Neill had already saved the Earth from destruction at least half a dozen times. So the clone -- our Captain O'Neill -- has the knowledge and experience of a _much_ more senior officer. An interplanetary hero, in fact."

"But he looks like he's barely out of college!"

Rodney shrugged. "His real age -- since he was created -- is something like four or five years old. His equivalent physical age . . . well, there was this acceleration procedure the Asgard did, which left him as a teenager. He could just barely pass for eighteen when they brought him on this expedition as a lieutenant, because they needed someone with a strong ATA gene and of course they didn't know about you. Then he met up with a Wraith when he was rescuing people off the Daedalus during the big siege."

"Oh."

"That's how his eye got messed up. And that's why he looks old enough for people to at least start taking him seriously. But you have to remember, as experience goes -- what you might call his subjective age -- he's older than you or me."

"Okaaay . . ." John finished off his eggs while he thought about this. It didn't get any less weird. He was getting used to the idea of aliens that could take over human bodies like their puppets and aliens that could suck the youth and life right out of a person, but now it seemed there were aliens doing screwy genetic experiments on people.

Of course, from what he'd learned about the Trust, there were also _people_ doing screwy human experiments and helping aliens take over human bodies, all in the name of patriotism and protecting Earth. The Trust had kidnapped Ellison and Sandburg on their honeymoon, had implanted Rodney with a Goa'uld on the eve of the expedition's departure, and must have done a lot of similar stuff John really didn't want to know about. So he couldn't blame it all on the aliens.

He shook his head. "I keep thinking it should be comforting that I'm not the only one that's had weird shit happen to me. But somehow, you know? It really isn't."

Rodney just grunted; he'd already turned back to his laptop and whatever simulation he was running today.

John gathered their plates. "I'll take these back to the mess. You all ready for the big day?"

Rodney grunted again, then belatedly turned his head. "Big day?"

John sighed. "Our first mission with Ellison, starting from the Gate room in an hour? You didn't forget, did you?"

Rodney's eyes went wide.

"You did forget. Rodney --"

"No, I -- I remembered! I've got all my gear set up. I just have to put it on and pack my vest. There's an alarm on my laptop that will remind me in --"

Rodney's laptop beeped insistently.

"See? I'm ready. Uh . . . will be ready. On time."

John thumped him in the shoulder. "Come on, Mr. absent-minded professor. We can gear up together."

"That's Dr. absent-minded professor to you," Rodney muttered as he closed up his laptop and followed John out the door.

Rodney looked kind of cute, in his tactical gear. Not exactly _sexy_ cute, because the laptop velcroed to his back and all the scanners and tools and powerbars in the front pockets really added bulk to his silhouette -- but he certainly appeared to be prepared for just about anything.

Ellison had made sure Rodney knew the basics for handling the nine-millimeter holstered at his thigh; he wouldn't be carrying any heavier weaponry. Apparently Sandburg also preferred to skip the P-90; instead, he carried a Wraith stunner to back up his pistol. They weren't expecting to meet anything or anyone hostile, of course, but Ellison had emphasized that they should wear the same gear they would take for an off-world mission and be ready for just about anything.

"One time we ran into a Wraith out on the north pier, more than three months after the siege," Ellison had growled when Rodney wanted to skip the weaponry.

Sandburg had shivered at the memory. "Yeah, one of those huge drones with the hockey-mask faces? Turns out it crawled away wounded during the fight and built a cocoon for itself. Their life signs can't be detected when they're in hibernation, you know, so we thought we'd cleaned the city out. Until we got close to this one and it woke up because it smelled food. I'll tell you, I was _so_ glad Jim heard it coming!"

"There've been some other things, too," Ellison went on. "Weirder things."

"Like that black energy-eating cloud thing that got released from a trap in one of the labs," Sandburg mused.

Rodney looked interested at that. "Sheppard -- uh, Colonel Sheppard -- told us about something similar they found on the other Atlantis. He said my counterpart got rid of it there."

"Well, Jack dealt with it here," Sandburg said. "He tricked it into going through the Gate to a deserted planet. But he paid for it with some nasty electrical burns."

"The point is," Ellison said firmly, "we never know what we might meet up with. So we go armed and ready. If you want, you can think of it as practice for going off-world. But we carry live ammunition."

John opted for both a nine-mil and a P-90, along with plenty of ammo in his vest. No grenades, though; he would prefer not to take any of them even on an off-world mission, and he certainly wasn't going to risk structural damage here in the city. It was a preference based on personal experience: John had once seen a curious Afghan kid tangle with a grenade, losing one arm and one leg and taking a hell of a lot of shrapnel just about everywhere else. The kid had lived long enough to make it to the hospital, but John never had found out if he survived. Since then, he refused to carry grenades or set mines in any inhabited area unless directly ordered to. And since he was a civilian and technically not bound to obey, maybe not even then.

Despite the precautions they took, the explorations turned out to be easy and pleasant. Ellison took point, John watched their backs, and Rodney and Sandburg ("Call me Blair") went everywhere in between, arguing passionately with broad, quick hand gestures over the meaning of everything they found. John wondered, watching Rodney's excitement, if the man had any Italian or maybe Spanish blood in his background.

As expected, the building they were checking out was mostly residential. But there were some large meeting areas ("ballrooms," John called them, gaining him a lecture from Blair on Ancient social rituals), communal baths on every other floor ("It's an important community bonding experience," Blair insisted), and sometimes interesting things left behind in the rooms or apartments ("We've seen those before -- the engineers think they're some kind of child's toy," Blair said, leading to a lecture from _Rodney_ about the fallacy of explaining things as essentially purposeless just because you didn't understand them. John had to admit, he couldn't see much purpose other than toy or decoration for the multicolored lights, but he prudently didn't say so).

"These are nice beds," John commented, impressed at the way the Ancient mattresses had lasted through the millenia. "How do we get a big one like this in our quarters?"

Blair snorted. "By moving it in the dead of night without telling Sergeant Bates about it, and bribing the movers with chocolate or porn."

Ellison gave his partner -- husband, actually -- a quelling glance. "It's a good thing I'm distracted, Chief, and didn't catch what you said just there. Otherwise, I might be forced to give you a noogie."

"Yeah, bite me, Ellison," Blair retorted. "You know Bates is obstructive just because he enjoys it. No reason John and Rodney shouldn't have a proper bed."

"Aside from the fact that we don't actually have room for one right now," Rodney said.

They were on the stairs up to the top level of the building, and John was wondering what lecture he'd trigger if he said the word "penthouse," when Ellison stiffened.

Blair broke off his discussion with Rodney in mid-word and moved up to one step below Ellison. "What is it, Jim?" he asked, resting a hand just above his husband's hip.

Ellison shook his head, mouth open as if he were tasting the air. "Not sure."

John reflexively checked behind and around them, making sure that Rodney was in a defensible position from either direction.

"Something . . . dusty," said Ellison. "And woody."

"Like sawdust?" Blair asked.

Ellison didn't answer. "Wood sap . . . "

Rodney scoffed. "The Ancients didn't use wood in their construction."

"If they just used it for a few things, we might not know," Blair pointed out. "The wood could have crumbled to dust in ten thousand years. Maybe we think they only used durable materials because that's all that's left."

Ellison shook himself like a man waking from a dream. "There's nothing alive or moving. Just different, that's all. Let's check it out."

But John noticed the team leader pressed Blair back carefully before moving ahead.

The top level turned out to be a clear-domed semi-circle, with broad steps leading down to a sunken center. "Almost like an amphitheater," Blair said.

Ellison was tilting his head back and forth, again with his mouth open. "The acoustics in here are . . . whoa," he said. "Anyone in the room could hear a pin drop, right there in the middle." He pointed to the oval area at the bottom of the steps, where some trash was scattered around.

"Maybe you could," Rodney muttered.

"No, really, anyone," Ellison insisted. "It's amazing. I swear I can hear the air moving right there."

"Don't go too deep, man," said Blair, brushing a hand over Ellison's arm.

"Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Chief," Ellison grumbled. But he showed no inclination to walk down to the center, instead prowling around the perimeter of the room.

John stood near the exit and watched Blair and Rodney exploring. They descended the steps and studied the debris in the recessed center of the room.

"Hey, check it out!" said Blair excitedly, and John startled; it sounded as if Blair's voice were coming from inside his head, directionless and everywhere. "Are those wood fragments?"

"Mm," said Rodney non-commitally. He bent down to look at something more closely, then pulled back so sharply John thought for a moment he'd been bitten by something. "These are musical instruments! Or . . . they were?"

Blair looked interested. "You really think so?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure of it. One or two instruments here, I think. See, that little piece of wood there is thin and very fine-grained. Not structural -- it was chosen for vibrational elasticity. And I think these bits may have been strings -- although it seems they were made out of multiple materials which have since separated. And those there --" Rodney pointed.

"Frets?" Blair guessed. "A capo?"

"No, I think . . . maybe keys, that would change the vibrating length of the string when pressed."

"Keys on a string instrument?" Blair said doubtfully.

"Pianos have strings," Rodney pointed out. "And hurdy-gurdies have keys, even though they're bowed instruments."

"Okay." Blair looked down at the pile by their feet. "I wonder what it sounded like."

"Depends if it was bowed or plucked or strummed," Rodney mused. "No indication of that here."

"Yeah, I suppose a bow wouldn't have survived."

"It probably sounded similar to some Earth instruments," Rodney said. "Probably a rich sound, guessing from the complicated string materials."

Intrigued, John caught Ellison's eye and asked with a sideways head-jerk and a lifted eyebrow if he could join the others. Ellison nodded; he'd probably hear anyone on the stairs long before John, no matter how they were positioned.

John hopped down the steps to see the remains of the Ancient hurdy-gurdy. It was pretty fragmentary; some of the little parts that Rodney had claimed were strings had ended up far from the central body -- maybe after snapping under tension. John was impressed they'd manage to conclude so much from so little.

"They must have used natural materials like wood for the sound quality," Blair said.

"That doesn't make any sense," Rodney objected. "We know the Ancients could design materials with almost any physical characteristics they wanted. They could have gotten far better vibrational fidelity than any wood. They could have prescribed exactly what kind of overtones they wanted and how the sound should damp out. Why take chances with random plant growth patterns?"

"So maybe it was some kind of retro movement, going back to the roots of their musical tradition," Blair suggested.

John added, "Or the instrument could have belonged to a visitor to the city, or it could be a gift from a less-advanced ally race . . ."

"All right, all right," Rodney said. "Lots of possibilities. That could explain why it was left behind -- less personal value than their own instruments, maybe."

John wandered over to a counter that curved along the back of the oval stage area, like a parapet to hold people back from the domed crystal window. "I wonder what this was for," he murmured. Holding people back from a window seemed un-Atlantean, somehow. He laid a hand on the countertop and jumped when half a dozen door panels slid open along its length. "Oh." Apparently it was some kind of storage cabinet.

Blair and Rodney were at his side in moments, studying the contents of the cabinet. Half the shelves were empty, but others held small forgotten objects that the two scientists argued over amiably. There was a thing like a guitar pick (Rodney called it a "plectrum"), something that Blair was sure worked as a tuning fork although it wasn't fork-shaped at all, and a device that lit with several colors at Rodney's touch which he speculated might be a tuner or metronome --

"Or maybe it has music stored on it! Recordings --" Blair began.

"Or music notation in a form we don't know . . ." Rodney peered at the tiny screen.

"Hey, cool, what about this?" said John, pulling something from a cabinet further along. "It's like a, like a flute or something."

"Or a whistle or recorder," said Blair. "Straight-through instead of sideways."

"But see, it's four-way!" said John. The single mouthpiece (that _was_ a mouthpiece, right? Listening to the scientists argue all day had John questioning every assumption) split into four pipes lower down with little keys like a clarinet's over what might be finger-holes. The material wasn't wood, but another of the Ancient substances that John had no name for: warm and lightweight like plastic, rough like sandstone, colored in teal and dark red and bright orange and forest green, probably not conductive to electricity (but you could never be sure about that one until you tried).

"So you can play four-part harmony with yourself?" Blair supposed. "Oh yeah, that would be awesome!" He blew experimentally into the mouthpiece, but no coherent sound came out -- only an airy sort of hoot.

"Careful, Chief, you don't know where that's been," said Ellison from above.

"It's been here for ten thousand years, Jim. I doubt any germs lasted that long."

Rodney ignored them, still studying the thing. "You couldn't sound all four of those at once," he said positively. "Human lungs -- or Ancient lungs, even -- wouldn't have the air capacity. It's physically impossible."

"You couldn't finger all four at once, either," John realized.

"But maybe two at once," Blair said. "That could be what the little key things are for, so you can make more notes with just three or four fingers."

John followed the thought. "If you're supposed to blow two at once there should be --"

"-- A way to switch them!" Blair said.

John grinned and turned the little multi-flute upside down to look for a switch. They found some kind of thumb-control near where the pipes split apart and were arguing over how to operate it when John realized that Rodney hadn't weighed in for over a minute. He turned to see his friend -- partner? boyfriend? -- kneeling before the last cabinet door and peering inside.

"What is it, Rodney?" John asked.

"It's . . . I think it's a sort of glass harmonica," said Rodney. "Except it probably isn't glass, of course." He extended a hand slowly, as if afraid to touch.

"Oh wow, you mean like one of those wine-glass things?" Blair said. "I always wanted to see one of those."

"Well, that's the principle, I think, but the design is different. Give me a hand, John -- it's heavy --"

They pulled the thing -- an oblong box with a series of round crystalline ridges showing at the back -- out of its cabinet. The crystals, with fat circles at one end tapering down to narrow, closely-spaced circles at the other, reminded John strangely of a spiral-grooved unicorn horn.

"Here," said Rodney, touching one end of the box. Several dim blue lights appeared, then turned warning-yellow and died. "I think this would be the mechanism that makes the crystals rotate."

John touched where Rodney had. He could feel the Ancient machinery trying to come to life, but failing. "I think it's dead."

"That might be why it was left behind," Blair said. "This thing is a little bigger than the kind of stuff that just gets forgotten, like a plectrum or a tuning fork."

"And these . . . " Rodney ran his fingers over an arc of keys colored in various muted pastels. "These must be how you choose which ones vibrate." He frowned. "Look at the progression of sizes on those crystals -- it's a chromatic scale, not like the finger-hole spacing on that whistle thing. And over four octaves -- you could play it almost like a piano."

"Too bad it's broken," said Blair. "I bet it sounded really amazing!"

"Mark it down in the report," Ellison said. "We can have it moved to the labs so you can try to fix it later. Otherwise, I think we're almost done here. Sheppard, you check these walls for hidden doors?" He waved to the rear of the room, at the top of the steps.

John found two closet-sized rooms -- both empty -- and a small bathroom along the back wall. Meanwhile, Blair and Rodney stowed the glass harmonica away again, took notes on what they'd found, and argued with Ellison about hanging onto the multi-whistle and the metronome/tuner/recording device. In the end, Rodney triumphantly pocketed the device and Blair carried the whistle cradled in his elbow as they headed back down the building to the transporter they'd three levels below. One mission completed, one building cleared as safe for habitation or study, and about twenty bizarre new mysteries for various groups of scientists to wrangle over.

John had to admit: even though it didn't involve flying, exploring a deserted alien city was certainly more interesting than rush-hour traffic reports.

* * *

When John got to the Gateroom, he found the back walls packed with people. The doors and control level and Gate level were carefully left clear, but he had to hunt around a little to find a spot out of the way that wasn't already taken. Watching the action from somewhere out of the way seemed to be everyone else's plan, as well -- at least, everyone who wasn't directly involved in today's experiment.

Rodney's legs were sticking out from under the main dialing console, and Peter Grodin was sitting above him typing at high speed on a laptop. Lieutenant Hailey and Dr. Simpson were further along the same control console, apparently arguing over crystal placement.

Dr. Weir, Colonels Caldwell and Mitchell, Captains O'Neill and Ellison were waiting at the back of the command level, watching all the activity. Dr. Jackson was down on the Gate level discussing something with the Canadian sergeant John had met before. Dr. Beckett was also down there, checking on three of his patients: a man who'd been caught by a Wraith and appeared about eighty years old, another man who'd lost a leg somehow, and a woman with chemical burns on her face and her eyes clouded to uselessness. Other people were milling around, helping out or delivering messages or getting in the way.

Someone -- Blair Sandburg, actually -- elbowed in next to John in the crowd just as Rodney squirmed out from under his console. The tension in the group of watchers rose sharply as Rodney leaned over Grodin's shoulder, pointed something out on the laptop screen, then pushed the other man out of the way so he could type himself.

"This is pretty intense, man," Blair murmured to John.

John nodded. "I've only been here a couple of weeks, and I think it's a big deal. I can't imagine what you folks from the original expedition must be feeling right now."

Finally Rodney straightened and turned, blinking at the crowd lining the walls and then turning to search for Weir. "We're ready to try it," he announced, and a sigh of anticipation went around the room.

Weir nodded solemnly. "Go ahead."

Grodin reached for the DHD, but Rodney was there before him. John had only seen the Gate dial a few times, so any variation from the usual wasn't really apparent to him -- but he felt the excitement ratchet up around him when the seventh chevron locked in place and the lights kept moving. Then the eighth chevron locked and whispers ran through the packed group: "Is that it?" "Did it work?" "Oh god, it's working!" even as the wormhole blasted into being.

Dr. Weir took a deep breath and pushed a crystal on the console, announcing clearly, "Stargate Command, this is Atlantis. Anybody home?"

The pause that followed was short but nerve-racking. Then a man's voice came over the speakers: "Atlantis, this is the SGC. Good to hear from you."

The room erupted in cheers.

John noticed it because he was watching Rodney. And he knew from the sudden stiffening of Blair beside him that his teammate noticed as well, but most people apparently didn't catch it. Rodney was muttering to Grodin under his breath, checking something on the laptop, talking again, looking increasingly desperate. Grodin looked worried.

Weir was speaking to General O'Neill now, the conversation broadcast for everyone to hear. The general's voice was a little deeper and rougher than Captain O'Neill's, but otherwise identical in intonation and delivery. John supposed that made sense, since they were essentially the same person at different ages.

"General, we have to thank you for sending the supplies and reinforcements last week," said Weir. "They cleared up our little problem very nicely."

"Glad to hear it," said the general's voice. "Anything we can do to help out, Liz, you just ask."

Rodney ducked underneath the console.

"Colonel Mitchell and Dr. Jackson are ready to return to Earth now, along with several others of our people who could benefit from advanced medical care. We also have a databurst with all of our mission reports ready to go."

Rodney popped up looking white-faced. Grodin was getting ready to send the databurst and just shook his head distractedly at whatever Rodney told him.

Blair's hand clamped painfully just above John's elbow. "What do you think is wrong?" he whispered.

John could only shake his head. "Sorry. I don't have Ellison's ears, so your guess is as good as mine."

"We're all set to receive your data," said O'Neill, "and it so happens we have messages for a lot of your people, too; we'll get those ready for you right away. The iris is open, you're clear to send people through anytime. Say, did Daniel find anything we can use against the Ori?"

Down on the Gate level, Colonel Mitchell rolled his eyes and keyed the mike attached to the shoulder of his fatigues. "We've got some addresses from the Ancient database we need to check out," he said.

Jackson explained, "It's supposed to be the location of some kind of weapon that works against ascendants, hidden somewhere in the Milky Way. There's a lot of other information, too. I think it'll come in useful, but I haven't sorted through all of it yet."

"We'll use anything you can get," said O'Neill.

Rodney was murmuring something in Weir's ear. She frowned and turned back to the console. "General, we're not sure how long we can keep this wormhole open, and we don't think we'll be able to dial Earth again by the same method, so we're going to start sending people through now." She waved down at Beckett, who started herding his patients toward the open wormhole.

"Really? I thought you must have found one of those ZPM things if you could dial at all," said O'Neill.

"As you'll see from our mission reports, we do have a ZPM, but the control crystal which allowed us to dial extragalactic addresses was damaged last year," Weir explained. "Dr. McKay came up with a scheme to adapt a regular dialing crystal, but it seems to be putting some strain on the system."

"Another Canadian jury-rig, huh?" General O'Neill said in amused tones which made John's hackles rise.

"We're glad it worked once, but it's not a method we can use regularly," said Weir in calm tones, but her forehead showed more worry than she was letting into her voice. She was keeping an eye on Rodney and Grodin to see if something else went wrong.

"Sure, sure, we're happy to get any word from you at all," said O'Neill.

Mitchell and Jackson ambled toward the Gate behind the three wounded.

"Colonel Mitchell indicated that you might be able to send a re-supply ship to us soon," Weir said, her hand white-knuckled on the back of a chair. "We could certainly use that; our databurst includes a list of the most urgently-needed supplies. We can assure you that the Odyssey won't be flying blind into battle as the Daedalus did. Although there are still Wraith throughout this galaxy, Atlantis is safe at present."

The pause this time was a little too long. "That's good to know," said O'Neill at last. "But the thing is, we might not be able to send Odyssey along for a while. The ship was badly damaged in a recent battle, and even when repairs are done we may need to keep her here for resisting the Ori."

A murmur of disappointment went through the people gathered at the back of the room.

Rodney was bent over a laptop again, frowning, then he startled and bent to stare more closely at something else. After a few seconds he turned his head, searching the group behind him until he found Ellison and beckoned him forward. They bent together over the laptop, Rodney explaining something with quick gestures.

Dr. Weir watched Rodney and Ellison for a moment, then decided it wasn't an immediate problem and turned to address the expedition members who'd assembled to watch the scene unfold. "I know everyone here has worked hard for this mission, and some of you feel you've given more than you had to give. We don't know when there might be another opportunity for us to get back to Earth. If anyone wants to go now, we won't hold it against you."

Everyone shifted their weight uneasily, some people stepping back as if to show their intention to stay.

On the Gate level, Beckett was arguing with a man wearing a sling: Major Lorne, who had come through the Gate with Colonel Sheppard and was wounded in the fight with the Genii. Apparently the doctor thought he should go back to Earth, but the major wanted to stay. John couldn't fault the guy for his determination, but he supposed the chain of command would be easier to keep straight if Lorne weren't here.

Two more people -- a limping man and a woman whose face was deeply lined with stress or pain -- headed for the wormhole, but since they were already on the Gate level and had luggage with them, John supposed they hadn't made the decision at the last minute.

No one else moved.

Weir looked keenly at Colonel Caldwell in his wheelchair, but he just shook his head with lips pressed tight; he wasn't leaving this command. With a quirk of her eyebrows in acknowledgment, Weir turned back to the mike. "That's everyone who's going through, General. I hope to have a chance to speak to you again soon. Sorry we can't make it a regular date."

"I understand, Liz," said O'Neill. "We'll call if we can, and we'll send a ship as soon as we can spare one."

Weir gave a tight nod. "Understood, General. We know you have problems of your own. Thank you again for the help you did send; it's been invaluable. Oh! You should know that Colonel Sheppard was returned to his own universe, but Mr. Sheppard has elected to stay on with us. You'll find his information in the databurst."

Rodney turned his head and sought John out in the crowd, smiling shyly. Then Ellison said something that caught his attention, and he bent back over his laptop.

"Nice to know he made it home," said O'Neill. "And I'm glad we could help you out with your quasi-Nazi guys. I hope you get your dialing problems fixed soon."

Weir swallowed hard. "So do we." She glanced around the room quickly. "I think that's all our business done. Take care, SGC. Hold the fort. Atlantis out."

"So long, Liz. Talk to you soon!"

The wormhole collapsed, and a collective sigh went out from nearly everyone in the room.

John was tempted to go up to the command level and shake Rodney until he found out what was making him look so worried, but the truth was he had no business up there. So he took himself off with the departing crowd, followed the ones heading for the mess hall, and hung out hoping to catch any rumors that might be going around. The Marines and airmen were champion gossipers, of course, but the scientists were better at putting together fragments of information into a coherent, maybe-accurate whole.

Part of what had upset Rodney must be related to what Weir had said about the new dialing scheme putting strain on the system; some people speculated that it might have messed up their ability to dial _anywhere_, not just extragalactic addresses. That led to a lot of debate on whether they could sustain themselves with just the small area of farmland the Athosians had managed to establish. Others talked about how long it would take to travel to the nearest Gate planet via Gateship, and whether the Daedalus' hyperdrive could be salvaged for use with another craft. But with every new round of speculation, someone would jump in and say they didn't _know_ that dialing out was broken.

"I don't get it," said John to the tableful of scientists who'd been holding forth on the subject. "Isn't there a whole bay full of Gateships that can dial by themselves? Why does it matter if the DHD in the control room is messed up?"

Dr. Simpson gave him a pitying look. "The Gateship dialers don't directly control the Gate; they just communicate with the main DHD. If that one is critically damaged, _no one_ can dial out."

A shorter, dark-haired woman -- John thought her name was Dr. Dumais? -- said, "but the SGC doesn't have a DHD at all. Their computer does all the dialing. If they can manage it, why can't we?"

Simpson threw up her hands. "Sure, if we want to spend a couple of years writing our own dialing program! Do you know how long it took the SGC to develop theirs?"

"But that was before they knew how the Stargate really worked," someone else commented. "Surely we could do it faster now, with a whole team working on it . . ."

John retreated as the table broke into multiple smaller discussions, everybody disagreeing with everyone else. He checked his watch and figured Rodney would be hungry by now, regardless of whether or not he had time to get free from his work. Delivering a plateful of food sounded like the perfect excuse to find out what was really going on, so John loaded up a tray and headed for the Gate room.

The control level was quiet, with no command staff in sight; only Lieutenant Hailey, the Canadian sergeant, and one other guy were present, all working intently at computers. John glanced toward Weir's office, but no one was visible behind the glass. Everyone must be in the conference room, he supposed -- maybe including Rodney.

He was trying to decide whether to wait or head for the labs to see if Rodney was down there when he heard a familiar voice snap, "Damn!"

Walking further into the middle of the control level, John found Rodney's legs sticking out from under the DHD again.

"Damn, damn damn!" said Rodney's voice, then he squirmed free and stood up, thumping down an Ancient scanner with a couple of circuit probes attached to it. He reached for the nearest laptop, then apparently decided it was unsuitable for some reason. "Airperson -- um, Lieutenant Hailey, I need the circuit diagram we've -- yes, that one. You need to change the -- no no, never mind, just move over and let me do it." He gave her a little push to roll her chair out of the way, and a second later he was completely engrossed in updating the diagram. He hadn't even noticed John standing there.

John caught Hailey's gaze, rolled his eyes, then shrugged: what can you do?

Hailey mimed strangling Rodney from behind his back.

The Canadian sergeant snorted, turned it into a cough, and tried to look innocent when Rodney glanced around. John shook his head disapprovingly at Hailey, who just huffed and rolled her chair toward the laptop Rodney hadn't wanted.

After several minutes of alternating between deep thought, muttering to himself, and typing furiously, Rodney sat back with a sigh and tapped his earpiece -- and since when did he wear one of those? "Peter, I've just mailed you an update. The inductance for that third coil was too low, and of course changing that messed up the impedance for the whole circuit, so I had to recalculate . . . well, if we don't have one, then make one! A third-grader could . . . I don't care if it's pretty, it just has to work! In fact, it only has to work once, and --" From the expression on Rodney's face, it was pretty clear that Grodin had cut the connection. "Fine. Be that way." He looked around distractedly and reached for the Ancient scanner instead.

"Got time for a bite?" John asked.

Rodney stared at him as if he had three heads. Then he looked at the tray, and that seemed to get through to him. "Food! Yes, here, give it to me."

There were laptops or Ancient control crystals on every flat surface. "Um, where can I put --"

"Just give it to me, I'll hold it on my lap. I'll eat off the floor if I have to. God, food!" Rodney grabbed a hunk of bread, dipped it in the stew, and started eating without regard to utensils.

The Canadian reached out and pushed a laptop to the side, clearing just enough space for John to set the tray down. John gave him a quick grin and pulled a chair up next to Rodney. "So, how's it going?" he asked.

Rodney talked and ate at the same time without choking or mumbling too badly, but there were some spraying crumbs and dribbled sauce. "The dialing crystal is ruined. Completely useless." (Crumbs sprayed on the word "useless.") "We're trying to build a circuit to fill the same function." He stuffed in another mouthful. "Only for travel inside this galaxy, of course."

John looked over at the laptop Rodney had grabbed from Hailey, which showed a circuit diagram crammed with sub-circuits and complex elements -- and he knew the screen only held a part of the diagram. "All that, to replace one little crystal?"

Rodney nodded and gulped at the water glass. "The Ancients were brilliant at solid-state physics. Every crystal in this room is a circuit as complex as a computer's microprocessor, with multiple inputs and outputs in each direction."

It was the control room. There were crystals _everywhere_. John shook his head in wonder. "But you said it only has to work once? What do we do then?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Steal a crystal from another Gate."

"Oh. What about the people on the other planet, then?"

That's what they're arguing about in there," Rodney said, with a jerk of his chin toward the conference room. "Who do we hate enough to strand them?"

"Um, the Genii, maybe?" John guessed.

"That's what I said, but apparently there are _politics_ involved. It wasn't all of the Genii who hurt us, just a small strike force acting independently, blah blah whatever." Rodney mopped up the last of the stew with the last of the bread, then downed the last of the water. He glanced around expectantly. "Dessert?"

John sighed and pulled out the plastic-wrapped brownie he'd tucked in his pocket.

"Chocolate!" Rodney breathed, and snatched it.

"Glad to help," John said a little ruefully as the brownie disappeared in three bites. He supposed he should have broken off a corner for himself before letting Rodney set eyes on it.

Rodney sighed when the food was gone, but not in a really satisfied way. "Yeah. Thanks for the food. I really needed the boost. It's not -- well . . ." He looked down.

John leaned a little closer and dropped his voice. "Hey. What's wrong?"

Rodney's eyes flicked to the others in the room. "It's my fault," he murmured. "It was my idea to dial Earth with the regular crystal, and now it's burned out. Not only can we not reach Earth again, we can't reach anywhere else!"

"Hey, easy," John soothed. "Firstly, dialing Earth even once was this huge deal. You got Mitchell and Jackson back, and from what I hear they're pretty important for that war the SGC is fighting right now. And some others got to go back, so it's a big deal for them, and the SGC will get to see the reports on Atlantis for the first time instead of just guesses about what happened based on that alternate universe. And anyway, now you know it can work -- you just have to figure out how to make it work right!"

Rodney shook his head. "I doubt Weir will be willing to risk that again anytime soon. We should have had a spare dialing crystal on hand just in case, but I was so sure I could make it work . . ." His shoulders hunched. "I get carried away sometimes. Sam Carter used to pull me back when I got too excited, but usually I won't listen to anyone. Weir won't be considering me for head scientist now."

"Rodney . . ." John didn't know what to say. He hadn't even known Weir _was_ considering making Rodney head scientist.

"And she's right," Rodney went on. "I'm not as sharp as I was before -- before that thing took me over. I can't think as clearly, I can't type as fast --"

"Whoa, wait a second!" John protested. "You're like a speed demon on those keyboards."

Rodney snorted. "Yeah, and half of those keystrokes are deletes because I'm trying to go as fast as I used to, and I just _can't_!" He held his hands out before him as if expecting a tremor, but John couldn't see anything wrong. "My fine muscle control is shot. I used to play piano, you know, but I gave it up. I probably couldn't do it again if I tried."

"Come on, Rodney, you're reading too much into this. Sure, you made a mistake, but it was for a good reason and you're already halfway to a fix for it. Weir's not gonna hold it against you, and neither will anyone else."

Rodney just shook his head and pulled away from John. "You don't get it." He looked at the others, all intent on their screens and apparently paying no attention to the conversation. "I'm not . . . not what I should be. What I could have been." He turned back to his own laptop.

John sighed and stood up. "You need to take a minute and relax, Rodney. Of course you make mistakes if you tense up and start expecting it." He gripped Rodney's shoulders. "Your back is like a rock. Here, relax your arms. No, just let your elbows drop." He started kneading.

Rodney leaned forward and groaned into his keyboard, but John couldn't feel much softening under his hands. But a pleasant distraction might help Rodney's mental state even it didn't do much for his muscles. John worked inward from Rodney's shoulders to his neck, then down his spine a short way. He caught what he thought was an envious glance from Hailey, but didn't pay any attention to her.

There was a clatter on the stairs, and Rodney sat up straight with a sharp breath as Ellison and Sandburg came down from the Gateship bay. Ellison shook his head at Rodney, looking grim. "Someone tampered with the camera. No records."

Rodney's eyes widened. "How? Those files are kept in a secure system with redundant backups. No one could --"

"Maybe not, but they _could_ put a piece of tape over the camera." Ellison looked disgusted.

"Oh." Rodney was taken aback. "Without getting their face in the image, I take it?"

"Whoever it is, is pretty smart," said Blair.

Rodney scowled. "Fine. But there's smart, and then there's _me_." He turned to the laptop and started typing at breakneck speed once again.

John watched with a smile tugging at his lips. He didn't see Rodney hit the delete key once.

He started to ask Ellison what they were talking about, but just then the doors of the conference room louvered open and people started spilling out: Weir, O'Neill, Beckett, Caldwell, and Teyla. John supposed Grodin would have been in with them if he weren't busy working on putting together the circuit Rodney had designed.

O'Neill came to stand just behind Rodney. "How's it goin'?" he asked, leaning down to peer at whatever Rodney was typing.

"Fine," said Rodney curtly. "We know what to build, we just have to put it together. Should be ready for trial in a few hours. Maybe less, if people would stop interrupting me." He never stopped typing the whole time.

O'Neill pursed his lips in an exaggerated, silent "Oooh," then stepped back. "Okay. Keep workin' on it."

As soon as the captain started to move away, Rodney twisted to glare at him. "Have you figured out where you want to go, yet?"

"Sure, Teyla knows a place," O'Neill said with easy confidence.

Weir came up beside him. "Apparently there is a planet with two Stargates -- one primary, and one nearly unused. Captain O'Neill and his team plan to travel there and see if the second Stargate has a dialing crystal we can use. That way we won't be depriving anyone of their primary means of trade."

"Of course, the other Gate's on the far side of the planet from the main one," O'Neill explained, "but it shouldn't take too long to get there by Gateship."

John nodded thoughtfully. Sounded sensible to him.

Not to Rodney, though. "And _why_ does this place have two Stargates? Probably because there's something wrong with the other one! What do we do if it turns out they have two because the DHD on that second Gate is already messed up, or something?"

Weir wasn't put out by his words or his tone. "In that case, Captain O'Neill will use the planet's primary Gate to travel to one of several planets listed in the Ancient database as completely deserted. After checking to make sure there are no civilizations on the planet, the team will take the dialing crystal from that DHD."

"Why not a space gate?" Rodney asked.

"We'd need to spacewalk to get to the DHD," O'Neill said, "And I'd like to avoid that if possible."

"I know a place," John said. Everyone turned to look at him in surprise. "I mean, in the other universe. But I would think it should be the same in this one. Low gravity, atmosphere too thin to breathe but thick enough that you can get by with just SCBA instead of a full pressure suit. In the other universe, it was just used by a Wraith dart as a stopover to hide where he was really going. There's no way anyone could really live there."

"You got an address?" O'Neill asked.

John felt his face heat. "Uh . . . most of it, I think. Might be off a symbol or two." He really had to get better at memorizing those things.

"Give us what you can," O'Neill said. "We can compare it against known addresses in the Ancient database, see if there's a match. Can't hurt to try, anyway."

"Do it," said Weir. Then she turned to Ellison. "What about the other matter?"

Ellison shrugged. "We've made a little progress."

"My office," said Weir. "Colonel Caldwell?" She, Ellison, Caldwell, and Sandburg all ended up in her office discussing whatever was going on.

The Canadian sergeant brought up a program that would let John enter the glyphs of a Stargate address. He plugged them in carefully, making a note of the symbols he was less sure about, and the sergeant started a database search for any matches.

When Ellison re-emerged and the command staff headed off to various tasks, John finally had the chance to ask what was happening. "So what's the deal with the cameras in the jumper bay?" he asked Blair.

Blair frowned. "In the what?"

"Uh, the Gateship bay, sorry," John said. "Is somebody smuggling something?"

Ellison stepped in. "Worse than that." He looked around at the various people scattered around the control room and jerked his head toward the conference room instead. Blair followed them silently.

"McKay noticed something while the Gate was open," Ellison said once the doors were closed. "A transmission on a different frequency from the databurst to the SGC."

John didn't quite get why everyone was looking so serious. "So, what, someone was sending a private message? What's the big deal?"

Blair put in, "Rodney's been checking it out. The message was encrypted pretty heavily. He hasn't been able to break it yet -- of course, he's been working on that other thing, too."

Right, no wonder Rodney was stressing out, with people pressuring him on two projects. "I still don't get it, though. What's the problem? Who do you think was sending this message?"

"The Trust," said Ellison flatly.

It took a moment to sink in. "Oh," John said.

"Right," Blair agreed. "So we probably have somebody from the Trust on the expedition. Somebody's been spying on us for years, man, and we didn't know it!" He looked very upset.

"Whoa, wait a second," John protested. "I mean, it makes sense, it's plausible, but we don't _know_ for sure that it's Trust, do we? It could be, um, someone sending a message to their illicit lover or something, couldn't it?"

Ellison rubbed the spot between his eyes. "McKay said that signal frequency wouldn't travel far, so it had to have been sent from within about fifty yards of the control room."

"Fifty meters was what he said, actually," Blair put in, but Ellison just shot him an annoyed look.

"So we've checked the areas where someone could have been camped out clandestinely sending a message, and we're pretty sure it was the Gateship bay."

"Because of the cameras," John said.

"That's one reason. And it's also more proof that whoever sent the message had trouble in mind. Who sabotages cameras just to send a tortured love letter?" Blair pointed out.

"So, wait . . ." John rubbed his forehead. "You don't have the camera records to show you who was in the jum-- the Gateship bay. But nearly everyone on the expedition was right there in the Gate room when the wormhole was open. What about looking at the Gate room cameras to see who _wasn't_ there?"

"We thought of that," said Ellison, "and we did check it out. A couple dozen people were missing -- the cooks, some people assigned to guard posts like watching the Genii prisoners, and some scientists with experiments they didn't want to leave. The kitchen staff and Marines can all vouch for each other; some of the scientists were working solo. Some people who worked third shift last night were asleep -- or supposedly asleep -- and we have no sure way of corroborating that."

"But see," Blair put in, "Rodney says the transmitter might have been set up in a quiet corner beforehand and triggered remotely. It _could_ have been someone who was right there in the Gate room. All they'd need is a PDA to send the command to the transmitter, and even if someone noticed it would just look like they were sending an email or snapping a photo or whatever."

Ellison took up the thread. "So we can guess that whoever did it was in the Gateship bay sometime before the dial-out -- to set up and to cover the cameras -- and sometime afterward, to take their transmitter down, but we don't know for sure when they did it. The area's been mostly empty all day long. Anyone could have gone in and out without being noticed."

John scowled, having the frustrating feeling of an idea right near the tip of his brain, like a puzzle piece that wouldn't quite fit. "Hang on. I know Atlantis only has cameras in critical areas, but aren't there sensors that show people wherever they are? Are those things logged?"

Ellison looked sour. "We don't run those sensors all the time," he said. "They're power hogs."

"Jim thought the power was a reasonable trade for the extra security," Blair added, "but Dr. Weir disagreed."

John shook his head; it still wasn't adding up. "But the Gateships have sensors like that -- they can't really suck up that much power, can they?"

Blair's puzzled frown disappeared. "Oh, you're talking about simple life-signs sensors. Yes, the city has those too, and they run all the time, but they can't distinguish one person from another like the biometric sensors do. They can't even tell male from female or human from alien."

"But they could show us what time someone was in the Gateship bay doing something weird in a hidden corner somewhere?"

Ellison's eyebrows went up thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess they could." He tapped his partner's arm. "Come on, Chief, let's check it out."

They went back into the control room and Blair settled at a console at the very back of the room, where John had rarely seen anyone working. Blair seemed familiar with the controls, and apparently they didn't require the Ancient gene, because soon there was a display up with colored dots swarming frenetically around the tower. Blair narrowed it down to the Gateship bay and a smaller time window.

A couple of dots bobbed and swirled around one of the ships, perhaps scientists doing maintenance. Those two dots zipped away while the clock indicator in the corner of the display still showed early morning, then there was nothing for a bit. Then one dot entered the bay, staying close to the wall. It hovered briefly at a spot near the entrance.

"That's where the camera is," Blair murmured.

Then the dot hurried to one of the second-level Gateship berths, ducking behind one of the rarely-used ships and doing something there before zipping out the door again.

"That's it," said Ellison, his finger hovering just below the clock indicator. The time was just about an hour before the wormhole opened.

Again there was nothing for a while, then they watched a lone dot come into the Gateship bay, jitter around the same little-used alcove, and buzz out again.

"Okay, so we have our time window," said Blair. "Windows."

"More than that, Chief -- we know exactly where the setup was. And I'm betting there's not a lot of ventilation in that corner."

Blair gave his husband a startled look. "You think you can smell him?"

Ellison shrugged. "Won't know until I try."

They hurried up the stairs to the Gateship bay with John tagging along curiously. He glanced at the camera by the door -- another example of what he had taken for Ancient wall art until Rodney explained that it was really an array of sophisticated lights, sensors, self-cleaning ventilation filters, and even full scale life-support for times when the city was underwater or in space. There were streaks of pale dust around the little camera opening, but no tape; Ellison must have removed it.

The others were already in the recessed Gateship berth that the Trust spy had used. John approached slowly, not wanting to distract Ellison, who was standing with eyes and mouth closed, sniffing intently while Blair rested a hand on his shoulder and murmured instructions or encouragement or something. But within a minute Ellison opened his eyes and shook his head.

"Nothing," he told them. "Even this back corner gets good air exchange. The Ancients designed this place too damn well."

"Maybe there are other clues," Blair prodded. "Take a look around. It could be anything --"

"Give me a chance, Chief, I'm looking!" Ellison studied the area. "Scuffs there and there . . . that's where he set up the device. And -- wait, stay back . . ." He leaned forward without moving his feet. "Yes, right there! Give me the powder, Chief."

Blair handed over what looked to John like one of the bulbs from an ear-cleaning kit. And when Ellison puffed the bulb gently over the area he'd shown such interest in, what came out looked more like talcum powder than fingerprint powder. John supposed the two ex-cops had been forced to improvise with what was available in lieu of real forensic equipment.

It worked, though: even John and Blair could clearly see the outlines of several handprints on the floor.

"Looks like whoever it was braced here when leaning over, maybe when getting up and down," said Ellison. He got down on his own knees and pointed. "There. That middle fingerprint -- it's the same as the one good one I picked up from the area around the camera."

"Great, so we know it's the same guy," said Blair.

"Kinda small for a guy, isn't it?" John objected.

Blair shrugged. "We have all kinds on this expedition. But you're right -- it's either a woman or a smaller-than-average man."

"Callus patterns," said Ellison, tracing the air above the powdery handprints. "Right-handed person bracing weight on the left hand . . . someone who works out with weights . . ." He stared as if he could read the mind of whoever had made the marks.

"Move over a sec, Jim. Let me get the photos first, then you can memorize to your heart's content."

"Oh, I'll know her when I see her," said Ellison darkly, straightening up. And when he found her, whoever she was, it sounded like he wouldn't deal with her gently.

* * *

When they went back down to the control room, Rodney wasn't there. Hailey said he'd gone down to the labs to help Grodin put together the circuit that was going to replace the dialing crystal. John had no further excuse to be in the Gate room, so he gathered up the remains of Rodney's lunch and headed out. He didn't see Rodney again until he woke to someone collapsing on the bed.

"Wha time's it?" John mumbled, half-rousing.

"Dunno," Rodney said into his pillow. "Past midnight. Two, maybe?"

"Did you get that circuit thing working?"

"Mmph," Rodney affirmed indistinctly. "Took f'rever, but we dialed out. Once. Overloaded right away. Smoke all over the place."

"Did O'Neill's team make it out?" John asked, coming a little more awake at the idea of a Gateship maybe getting stuck halfway through the Gate, like in the story the Teyla in the other universe had told him.

"Yeah, couple of hours ago."

John blinked into the darkness. "Why'd you stay up so late, then?"

Rodney groaned. "Been working on the decryption. Got some of it, think I got the algorithm nailed. Left a routine running, check it in the morning." He sounded exhausted, words slurring into each other.

John inched closer and slung an arm across Rodney's shoulders. He was a little ripe, but nothing unbearable. Sweat and smoke and tired scientist. "Good work, Rodney."

"Mmm."

"I mean it. You did a hell of a job today. We wouldn't even have known about that extra transmission if it wasn't for you. And getting the Gate to dial again, just a few hours after burning out the crystal? There were people guessing it would take a couple of _years_ to be able to do that."

Rodney answered with a snore.

"Okay, I'm glad we cleared that up so you can get to sleep," John whispered. Then he closed his own eyes, tucked his forehead against Rodney's shoulder, and settled back to sleep himself.

In the morning, John dragged himself out of bed at first light and staggered to the bathroom. He was washing his hands in a semi-trance when he heard a half-strangled shriek from the bedroom behind him. Two seconds later, John found himself in a ready stance between the bed and the door, with a toothbrush he didn't remember grabbing held out threateningly.

There was no one there. Rodney was alone, rigid on the bed with his face in a terrified grimace, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, and small, desperate whimpers escaping through clenched teeth.

"Rodney --" John reached out for him, stared at the toothbrush, and dropped it on the bedside table. "Rodney, it's okay. It's just a nightmare. Wake up."

Rodney keened more loudly, his arms straight at his sides, his head barely moving in tiny shakes back and forth.

John touched his shoulder cautiously, then more firmly. A dim memory from his childhood prompted him to soothe instead of shaking. He petted Rodney's arm, which calmed him a little but didn't make him relax from his stiff posture. John stroked wisps of hair back from Rodney's forehead, saying over and over, "Rodney, it's okay, I'm here, it's just a dream, you're okay . . ."

Rodney's eyes opened, but he held perfectly still for a moment, not breathing as he slowly focused on the room around him. When his gaze settled on John, he made a strange sobbing noise and fell limp all at once.

John kept petting him. "Easy, buddy. It's okay. Just a dream."

"Oh, god!" Rodney gasped. "No, no, it wasn't just a dream."

For a moment John remembered the other Rodney's strange reaction after the one night they'd spent together, and he wondered if this one was about to pull the same thing on him.

Instead, Rodney grabbed John and pulled him down awkwardly on top of him -- John barely got his hands out in time to keep his full weight from landing on Rodney's gut. Rodney didn't seem to notice or care as he buried his face in John's chest and choked out words. "It was _inside_ me and I couldn't do anything, I couldn't tell anyone! I couldn't control my own body! I would try to, to lift one finger or move my eyes or just do one thing, _anything_, and I couldn't!"

Whoa. John had gotten a piecemeal idea of what Goa'uld possession was like, but he hadn't realized it was this bad.

"Carter figured it out. My god, John, I owe -- if I had --" Rodney rubbed a hand across his face and pulled away a little bit, catching his breath. "I've always resented not getting to go on the expedition originally, you know. I mean, I blame the Trust and the _creature_ they put in my head, not Carter for figuring it out. But I always thought if I'd gotten to come to Atlantis with the first group, everything would have been different."

"And now you don't think so?" John asked carefully. He was propped on his side now, still stroking Rodney's arm and shoulder soothingly.

"I never really thought about what would have happened if I'd actually stepped through the Gate with that thing still controlling me. There are no facilities to remove it here, you see? Even now, the SGC needs to get help from the Asgard or the Tok'ra for an extraction, and it still doesn't always go right. If the Atlantis medical team tried it with what they have here, it would have killed me for certain. That was the dream." Rodney squinched his eyes shut and tucked his face against John's shoulder again.

"You dreamed they killed you trying to get the snake out of your head? Aw, Rodney . . ."

But Rodney was shaking his head, still pressed against John's skin. "No, in the dream, they knew they couldn't do anything about it. They locked me -- it -- up, but it escaped. I was, was, rampaging through Atlantis leaving a trail of bodies behind me, trying to get to the Gate. And then O'Neill caught up with me -- in the dream it was General O'Neill, not the younger version. I saw his face, and I knew he was going to kill me --" Rodney's words were getting faster, running together, distorted with remembered fear.

"Shh, easy Rodney, it's okay now," John murmured, wrapping his arm around to rub circles on Rodney's back. "No one's going to kill you."

"But that's the thing, I was _glad_. I saw that look in O'Neill's eyes and I knew he would kill me, and I was so fucking grateful."

"Well, _I'm_ grateful to Carter," John said firmly, trying to bring Rodney back to reality. "Not that I think it would have turned out like your dream even if you had come to Atlantis before they found out -- but I'm glad they got you fixed sooner, on Earth." With only a year of physical therapy and a lifetime of self-doubt to suffer for it. "If Carter's the one to thank for that, I'll have to send him something nice as soon as we get back in contact with Earth."

Rodney pulled back and stared incredulously at John. "Her."

"What?"

"Her! Carter's a woman!"

John frowned. "I thought his name was Sam?"

Rodney rolled his eyes and started a verse of what John knew by now was one of his favorite songs: Oh My God You're So Stupid I Could Bust a Gut Laughing, But You're Not Worth The Surgery. "Hello, Sa_man_tha Carter? Teammate of General O'Neill -- when he was Colonel O'Neill -- and Colonel Mitchell and Daniel Jackson? Saved Earth oh, about a dozen times?"

"Okay, okay! You know, not all of us have had access to super-classified material for ten years," John grumbled. He had been trying to catch up on the history of the Stargate program, but the mission reports all referred to Carter as Captain, Major, or Colonel. But John didn't really mind looking like an idiot; he much preferred Rodney acting superior and mocking anyone in sight -- even John -- than curled into a defensive ball with his eyes wide in terror, remembered or otherwise.

Rodney wasn't finished with his paean to Colonel Carter. "Blonde, tall, legs up to here, smartest woman in two galaxies, almost a match for my own unparalleled brilliance? Only woman truly worthy of bearing my progeny?"

"I'm glad to hear that," John snorted. "I wouldn't want you shacking up with just any random bimbo to bear your spawn. In fact --" He rolled Rodney over and straddled him, although he was careful not to actually hold the man down after a dream of paralysis and helplessness. "In fact, I think you should forget the bimbos altogether." He took Rodney's mouth in a firm kiss, ignoring the taste of stale coffee.

Rodney blinked up at him. "All right. Of course, you know, I have a sperm donation on file, so I wouldn't actually have to --"

John laughed and kissed him again, harder, just to shut him up.

One thing led to another and soon they were getting pretty energetic. It wasn't what John would call rough sex, but it was the wildest they'd gotten yet. They'd mostly been taking it slowly since John knew Rodney didn't have a whole lot of experience.

He'd already seen how Rodney tended to burst into uncontrollable laughter after a particularly intense orgasm. This time John, breathing hard, barely had a chance to bring his legs down to the bed before Rodney was curling into a ball with snorts and hisses of mirth escaping on every breath. Then Rodney's eyes widened and he said "Oh, shit," and the laughter turned into sobs.

John held him and patted him awkwardly, telling himself firmly that it wasn't like the crying he'd hated from his occasional girlfriends. Rodney wasn't trying to persuade or blackmail him into doing something; he was just having a rough time dealing with past events, and John should be able to connect with that, even if he'd never dealt in quite the same way himself. The occasional burst of giggles between Rodney's tears, and the fact that he didn't get offended if John told stupid jokes to try to cheer him up, didn't hurt either.

Rodney didn't fall asleep after the crying jag as he usually did after laughing, but he got out of bed, had a quick shower and shave, and grabbed his laptop to check his email.

John called up his own mail just to see, expecting at most a curt message from Ellison and two or three from Blair, only to find two hundred messages waiting in his inbox. "Where the hell did these all come from?" he muttered as he opened the first and was floored to find it came from a friend back in San Diego. He'd stood the guy up for dinner when he was suddenly transported to an alternate universe, and hadn't really expected to hear from him again. Then he realized the date was just a few hours after their planned dinner.

"Hello, wormhole to Earth?" Rodney said. "The SGC forwarded all our messages -- except the spam, of course; they have excellent spam filters."

"But -- how did they --" John checked the next message, which was from a fellow pilot, angry at being called in on his day off because John hadn't shown up for work -- nearly three weeks ago! "What am I supposed to tell all these people who are wondering where I am?"

Rodney turned his head incredulously to stare at John. "You don't have to tell them anything right now. We're not going to be in a position to talk to Earth again for weeks or months. You can have all the time you want to think up a good excuse."

"Oh. Okay." John looked at the little icon representing an overflowing mailbox and quietly quit the mail program.

"My decryption is almost finished," Rodney said. "Should take about another half hour." He frowned. "It's weird, though. Some of the stuff that was sent in that message doesn't really make a lot of sense. Like maybe the spy is really clueless about some things."

"That doesn't fit with the transmitter setup, though, does it?" John pointed out. "I thought that was a pretty clever arrangement."

Rodney shrugged. "Moderately. I could have done better myself, of course."

"Of course." John ducked to hide his smile.

"So maybe it's another layer of code, like pre-arranged cues -- no, that doesn't work either. It's perfectly normal language, it's just saying some things that aren't true. Almost, but not quite true. The number of Genii prisoners is wrong, and the account of retaking the city is off, and there's something in there about a relationship between Weir and Caldwell that I _really_ don't think is true . . ."

"Somebody who doesn't have a lot of access to top-level meetings?" John suggested. "Maybe she's just relying on the rumors that spread through the city -- those get pretty wild sometimes."

"She?" Rodney said blankly.

"Yeah, Ellison thinks it's a woman. What, you didn't know?" John felt an unholy grin spread across his face as he mimicked Rodney's tone from earlier. "Hel_lo_, tiny handprint? Moves unobtrusively? Overly conscious of when she's on camera?"

"Cut it out," Rodney scoffed, then ruined his act with a stifled giggle. "I had no way of knowing; I was busy yesterday."

"Sure, sure, make excuses . . . "

Rodney scowedl again at his computer. "Anyway, I suppose you're right, it could just be someone who's out of the loop, but it seems different to me. Almost as if . . . " He shook his head. "No, I don't know what it is. Maybe we'll figure it out once the whole message is decoded. Meanwhile, should we see what's for breakfast today?"

It was pancakes. Slightly gritty, rubbery pancakes, with an odd almond-like aftertaste, but recognizable nonetheless. A variety of artificially-flavored syrups were offered as well, but Rodney turned up his Canadian nose at anything short of real maple syrup and topped his pancakes with fresh fruit and dribbles of cream instead. John went for the syrup, figuring that flavored corn syrup from Earth was preferable to the mammary secretions of unknown alien animals.

They were digging into their respective stacks when someone drawled, "Hey McKay, nice work yesterday!"

Rodney jerked himself upright and turned to stare. Lieutenant Cadman had stopped just behind their table. She was in full tactical gear, but her only weapon was a sidearm.

"You're back!" Rodney said.

"Yep!" Cadman hooked a chair with her ankle, pulled it out, and sat in it backwards. "Just got in an hour ago."

John blinked. "You went with O'Neill's team?"

Her eyes narrowed. "I'm _on_ O'Neill's team, flyboy."

"Sorry." John spread his hands to reveal no weapons except fork and table knife. "I'm new here, I don't know anything."

She snorted.

"So did you get it?" Rodney demanded. "Did the second DHD have a dialing crystal?"

John noticed that everyone in the mess hall was craning to hear their conversation.

"Nope," said Cadman. "There was no DHD at the second Gate. We had to fly all the way back around the planet to the primary Gate and start working through our list of deserted planets." She nodded to John. "We ended up going with the one you pointed us at. The other planets were supposed to be uninhabited, but we couldn't be sure."

"Cool, I'm glad I could help," John said.

"So we have a dialing crystal," Cadman announced loud enough for the whole room to hear. Everyone cheered -- even the cooks, John noticed. "Thanks to you, Rodney." She patted his arm with a smirk.

"Well, I, uh -- thank you. I mean, you're welcome." Rodney's ears were pink again and his chin up as if he suspected mockery, but he seemed genuinely pleased underneath the embarrassment.

"Don't get so much practice at that polite Canadian stuff, huh?" John teased.

"Oh, bite me!" Rodney retorted, and John laughed.

* * *

John was the last to stagger back, sweaty and covered in flakes of bark, with his bag of fruit. As he upended the bag on the blanket Blair had laid out on the sand, he gasped, "I gotta say --"

Blair gestured urgently for silence, pointing at the man who lay sleeping peacefully in the shade.

"-- This is the life," John finished in a stage whisper. He didn't think Rodney was going to wake up just for a little conversation, but it couldn't hurt to let the guy get some decent sleep for a change. Anyway, it was nighttime by their internal clocks.

They were on a tropical island halfway around the planet from Atlantis, over ten thousand miles away. They'd gotten there in less than three hours -- leaving Atlantis in late afternoon and arriving on the island just a little after local dawn -- by taking a Gateship in ballistic flight up above the atmosphere. John's first time in space, and he got to be the pilot!

Even better, since the Gateship's inertial dampeners and artifical gravity made Ellison a little queasy, once they broke atmosphere John had turned them off. Blair had made retching noises for a bit (without actually throwing up), and Rodney had looked a little green himself in between lectures on the oddities of mechanics in micro-gravity, but John and Ellison had a blast bouncing around the back of the Gateship. John made a spit-blob, and swallowed it back up to the accompaniment of Blair's groaned protests. Rodney floated out of his seat long enough to demonstrate what he claimed were "classic" zero-g dance moves; naturally, they could only be accomplished by two people, and when one of those two had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, the dance looked a lot more like a wrestling match. Ellison ignored them all as he criss-crossed the inside of the craft repeatedly in one direction and then another, fascinated by some faint difference that Rodney decided, after hearing Ellison's description, was a Coriolis effect.

John had started singing, "Heeeeere am I floating in a tin can," and Rodney had joined in with, "Faaaaaar above the world," and pretty soon they were all singing in decent tune with occasional harmonies. And when that song was finished, Blair started in with Peter Schilling's answer to Bowie. They discussed other space-related music, which degenerated into Blair-as-brass and Ellison-as-timpani doing a rendition of the opening of "Thus Spake Zarathustra."

"Too bad we don't have that glass harmonica thing working," John said. "I bet Rodney could play Strauss waltzes on it."

"Hey, that would be perfect. Talk about ethereal!" Blair enthused.

When it was time to strap themselves in again and turn on the inertial dampeners to prepare for re-entry (with Blair talking Ellison through re-adapting to the artificial conditions), John felt almost like a kid dragged away from playtime. He knew how to make the return journey faster, but he wasn't at all sure that he wanted to.

And if that hadn't been enough fun, now they were on a beautiful beach in warm-but-not-too-hot sun, and Ellison had agreed to let John try out his surfboard (made by Halling the Athosian to Ellison's exacting specifications, in return for a favor Ellison didn't want to talk about). And the only work they had to do was a little bit of fruit-gathering. How cool was that?

The geophysicists had chosen this island from a map in the Ancient database as supposedly having the best variety of food sources year-round and the lowest chance of vulcanism (although hurricanes and tsunamis were still a possibility). It should have enough resources to sustain thirty-odd prisoners that Atlantis could afford neither to keep nor to set free.

That was the plan, anyway. Some people -- notably Blair and Dr. Weir -- had objections on moral grounds, but since any possibility of regular contact with Earth or re-supply via Odyssey had been pushed back another indefinite number of weeks or months, Atlantis simply didn't have the manpower or capacity to keep feeding useless mouths. It wasn't lost on John that the Genii had apparently considered stranding the expedition members on the mainland to keep from having to feed them -- but the Genii had also apparently considered execution and exile to a planet with a broken DHD, so it wasn't like they had the moral high ground.

And really, this place was like a paradise: beautiful weather, no predators, potential food in every bush or tree or lagoon. John knew paradise could turn to hell pretty quickly if someone got sick or injured, but they were planning to give the exiles enough tools and resources to build shelters for themselves, and they'd check on them every few weeks. As a jail for people who had killed and traumatized quite a few of the people in Atlantis, it seemed pretty cozy.

Yes, it really was a shame to let the Genii have this beautiful island, thought John as he leaned back on the blanket, watching the waves curl in toward the sand. Ellison was out there sitting on his board, watching for just the right wave to come along. John had never used a wooden surfboard before. This one was made of a pretty light wood, sanded and sealed and waxed to Sentinel perfection -- but it was still going to be different from fiberglass, and John was itching to find out just how.

Blair was keeping a proprietary eye on Ellison also, even as he laid out the various fruits everyone had collected on the blanket and started snapping photos of them. He wrote meticulous descriptions of where each one had been found, on what kind of plant, and made sure every photo had some indication of scale in it. Ellison's collection, naturally, was the largest, and included some roots and leaves and stalks that John wouldn't have guessed would make decent food at all.

Finally Ellison came dripping back up the beach, clad only in boxers (John was just a little intimidated; maybe he ought to work out more often) with the board tucked under one arm. He wiped his face on his discarded shirt but didn't bother drying the rest of his body.

"How's the surf?" John asked.

Ellison shrugged. "Not too bad. The board's a little heavy, but manageable. I was hoping for a basic funboard feel, but this rides more like a mal than an egg. Actually, the big difference is the water here isn't as salty as Earth's oceans."

John nodded. "Less buoyancy."

"Yeah, and it moves differently. Choppier. But I'm not sure if you'll even notice that. I get into subtle stuff sometimes."

"No, it's good to know. I can't wait to try." John looked from the board to the waves and back to Ellison.

"Be my guest." Ellison plopped down on his knees.

"Hey, man, I had those all arranged!" Blair protested as the blanket moved.

"Sorry, Chief."

"No, it's okay, I was almost done anyway. So what do you think?"

Ellison frowned at the array of potential foodstuffs. "Not that one, or that one, or that one." He picked up a bright pink plum-like fruit and frowned at it. "Not sure about this one. It isn't ripe yet, but it'll probably be edible when it is. Put it in the bag to take back to Atlantis, anyway." His hand hovered over another one. "Who brought that in?"

"I did," said John, who had just gotten his boots off and was shucking his pants.

Ellison looked at him critical. "You have a rash on your arms."

"I what?" John looked down, and sure enough, the insides of his wrists had come up in little red bumps. He'd been scratching them without even realizing it. "Shit."

"It smells a little like poison ivy. Not in the fruit, but on it," said Ellison. "Maybe something from the leaves of the plant. Put warning labels on the picture of that one and bury it without touching it."

"Gotcha," said Blair.

Ellison nodded towards John. "Seawater's probably good for the rash, until we can get back and have it looked at. Don't scratch."

"Thanks, I wouldn't have thought of that," John said dryly. He pulled off his shirt.

"These ones all go back to Atlantis; I think they're fine but they need more testing. The chefs will want to check this stuff out -- smells sort of like mint. And this . . . huh. Who got this one?" Ellison held up an amazing ugly fruit: purplish-gray, hairy like a kiwi, and shaped in irregular lumps like a more crumpled version of ginger root. The lumps made it look almost cancerous; it made John think of warts on the nose of a fairy-tale witch.

"That was me again." John had been half-mesmerized by the supremely horrible-looking stuff when he found it on the ground. But broken open, it smelled sort of nice, so he'd shinned up a tall tree to get a fresh one. That was what had taken him so long in getting back to the beach.

Ellison broke off one of the lumps and sniffed it as John had done. "This smells delicious," he said, and before anyone could do anything he popped the grape-sized bit in his mouth.

"Jim!" Blair protested. "What are you doing?"

"Hmm?" Ellison looked up blankly with his mouth full. "It's fine, Chief," he said. "Tastes great."

"Who was the one who lectured us on not tasting anything we couldn't identify?" Blair demanded.

"This is different. I can tell it isn't toxic or anything. It's really great, Blair -- you should try some."

"Unh-uh, I don't think so. Give me that." Blair snatched the rest of the fruit away from Ellison and set it down on his other side.

John watched the by-play uneasily. "Do you think we should head back? In case he gets sick or something?"

"Hey, wait a second, who's the team leader here?" Ellison demanded.

Blair sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. "You really think it's safe, Jim?"

"I'm sure it is. Come on, Blair, I'm not going to eat something poisonous!"

Blair turned to John. "It's probably okay. Go ahead and get that stuff washed off your arms. I'll call you if we need to start back. How fast can we reach Atlantis?"

John shrugged. "One hour -- less if I really push it."

"Okay. Go surfing. I'll call if we need you."

"Team leader, right here!" Ellison snapped.

Blair swatted his arm. "Yeah, and team leader's babysitter right here. What the hell did you think you were doing, Jim?"

John picked up the board, waved cheerily at them, and left them to their argument. The water was deliciously warm, and the salt first stung and then soothed his itching arms.

It was turned out to be just as Ellison had said; the board rode low and maneuvered sluggishly, and the waves seemed to move a little differently from what John expected. But after a couple of false starts he managed to catch several breakers for a reasonably good ride -- and if it wasn't as narlacious as a short board on the SoCal coast, it was still a hell of a lot better than no surfing at all.

He checked the beach frequently and saw Blair gesticulating at Ellison -- then later, Ellison pacing up and down the beach. Rodney was sitting up now, his head swiveling from the arguing couple to John's position and back again.

Then John saw a couple of shadows in the water that might have been something like sharks. Or, for all he knew, they might be friendly and curious like porpoises or dolphins. They were bigger than his board, anyway, and he wasn't going to ask them to stop and show their teeth. He caught one more wave (hastily, and a little late to get the right lift, so he had to drop back down on his belly after a short ride) and then paddled the rest of the way in.

Blair was still remonstrating with Ellison. John stuck the board upright in the sand to dry and headed their way. "Everything okay?" he asked.

Blair threw up his hands. "He's nuts. You're crazy, you know that, Jim?"

Ellison, staring at the ocean with his head tipped to one side, didn't respond.

"He ate the rest of that fruit," Blair explained. "He said it tasted too good to pass up. I think it's affecting him somehow, but I can't get a straight answer out of him."

"Do we need to head back?" John swiped at his dripping hair.

Blair sighed and pushed the hair back from his face. "His breathing and balance are fine. I was able to check his pulse a few minutes ago, and that seemed fine too. If we're just talking altered senses, I'm afraid being shut in the Gateship might be worse than waiting it out."

John shrugged. "Okay. If you need a hand hauling him back to the ship and getting him strapped down, just call us."

Rodney looked up as John approached the blanket. "Is Captain Ellison okay?"

John grabbed up his abandoned shirt and used it to brush at his face and hair. "Blair's not sure. He thinks trying to fly right now might be a bad idea, though, so we're going to give it a little longer and see what happens."

Rodney's eyes were tracking John closely, so he bent casually from the waist instead of just tossing his shirt down again. Then he twisted a little, back and forth, enjoying the wind and sun on his damp skin. "I'm not going to be crying if we have to stay here a little longer," John admitted, his face lifted to the sky.

"Do you, uh --" Rodney paused to clear his throat; his voice had gone sort of husky. "Do you need some sunscreen? I brought some along. Not my formula, unfortunately -- I do like to make my own, but I haven't had time for it yet. And I thought the other, uh, chemistry project had higher priority."

John grinned. "Definitely higher priority." Rodney had brewed up some very slippery, non-allergenic, edible lube for them to play with, so they didn't have to try to charm it out of the nurses anymore.

"Wnat other chemistry project?" Ellison and Sandburg had come back along the beach, with the bigger man half-hanging over Blair's shoulder. "I bet I know what that is," Ellison sing-songed. "Is lube, Rodney? Did you make some loooobe?"

"Uh . . ." Rodney looked like he had no idea what to say, his face going pink.

"Jim's feeling kind of happy right now," said Blair wearily.

"Blair has lube," Ellison went on, stroking his husband's chest. "He carries it in his tac vest, even when we go off-world. _Especially_ when we go off-world, he says. Isn't that right, Blair?"

"Yes, Jim," Blair sighed.

"Where's your lube now, Chief? Huh?" Ellison's hand wormed under the edge of Blair's T-shirt and started groping around as if expecting to find a hidden cache somewhere.

John's own face was beginning to heat up. "Maybe we'd better give you two some, uh, privacy." He started to gather his clothes up hastily. "Rodney, I saw a really nice clearing just around that little promontory. Why don't we go check it out?"

Rodney popped to his feet. "Great idea!"

"Aw, don't go!" Ellison protested. "We can have a party right here."

"No, that's okay, I'm not really into, uh . . . parties, you know?" John glanced at Blair, who seemed more resigned than worried.

"Come on, Jim," Blair said. "Why don't you sit down here with me and I'll rub your temples, okay? You have a headache?"

"Unh-uh." Ellison nuzzled his husband's neck. "I feel just fiiine."

John clutched his clothes to his chest. "Okay then. We're, uh, right around the corner. Yell if you need, you know, a hand, or whatever. We've got our radios."

Rodney was already hurrying down the beach. "Bye! Have fun!"

The clearing really was nice, with a kind of grass that made a soft mat instead of standing up in pricky spikes. It was as good as a blanket, once John persuaded Rodney that the grass wasn't going to make his skin break out in hives. Pretty soon they ended up having a little fun themselves. Rodney hadn't brought his super-lube, unfortunately, but the sunscreen turned out useful, if not in exactly the way it had been intended.

Blair found them a few hours later napping in the shade. "Jim's asleep," he reported.

John squinted up assessingly. Blair was fully dressed, but his shirt was pretty rumpled and there were some interesting marks just above the collar. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Blair ducked his head. "Ordinary fine, not stoned out of my gourd fine."

"That's good."

"We'll need to, uh, collect some replacement samples, though," said Blair. "A few of them got damaged. And there was that one Jim ate."

Rodney scoffed. "You're not really going to take those drug-fruits back to Atlantis, are you? We don't want everyone on the expedition getting high!"

Blair shrugged. "Jim has some _very_ weird drug reactions. I'm betting it'll turn out there's some tiny amount of a trace chemical in those fruits that wouldn't affect anyone but him. And he says they taste good. We should definitely take them back for testing."

John sighed. "Those trees are a pain to climb, though. Maybe I could hover close to one, and you can grab some fruit through the hatch?"

Blair's flush disappeared. "Stand in the hatchway while we're flying?" He gulped.

"Just hovering -- the Gateship's steady as a rock. But if you have a problem with heights, maybe Rodney can --" John turned to see Rodney shaking his head vigorously.

In the end, Rodney and Blair played rock-paper-scissors and Blair lost. The three of them working together manhandled Ellison into his seat, Blair retrieved their replacement samples (a whole bagful, in fact), and they headed off to Atlantis shortly before the sun set on the island.

Ellison woke up halfway through the space portion of their flight and emptied his stomach. Fortunately, John had enough warning to turn the gravity back on, so the stuff wasn't floating everywhere. Then Ellison complained alternately of hunger and headache for the rest of the trip, until Rodney exclaimed, "God, you sound just like me!" After that, the team leader was sullen and probably a little embarrassed. John thought this seemed like a good time to do his job without asking questions or making comments.

By the time they got home, it was morning in Atlantis and all of them were exhausted. They handed their samples over to be tested and then debriefed hastily with Weir and O'Neill, describing the island as very promising and consistent with what the Ancient database said. Then Blair hauled Ellison to the infirmary for tests (even though he agreed that blood tests probably wouldn't detect anything), and John hauled Rodney off to bed.

* * *

"THC."

Rodney's reconstituted apple juice sprayed halfway across the table.

John gaped at Blair. "_Pot?_ No way." He thumped on Rodney's back.

"Way." Blair nodded solemnly. "I shit you not."

"It isn't identical," Ellison said -- still a little subdued, although he had taken John's cautious ribbing in good humor. "It's just a close relative -- what did Beckett call it, Chief?"

"'A close chemical analog of cannabis,'" Blair recited.

"You mean yesterday, he really was stoned?" Rodney choked. He was just finishing up his spaghetti-with-yellow-sauce.

"Out of his gourd," said Blair, fondly patting his husband's shoulder.

"The fruit was full of pot? It was pot fruit?" John repeated, still having trouble with the concept. He had tried the red sauce for the spaghetti, and wasn't planning to finish his plate.

"The cooks are calling it 'Mary Jane fruit,'" Blair chortled.

Rodney stiffened. "What -- the cooks? What do they have to do with it?"

"They're serving it for dessert," said Ellison, straight-faced. Ellison had chosen the ugly greenish-gray sauce, and Sandburg had done the same after a discussion. Apparently it was pretty good; John should have trusted his team leader.

"They are not," Rodney said.

"Sure they are," Blair returned. "We brought back plenty, it's edible, it tastes good, and it's full of vitamin C and beta carotene."

"What do you think is in that pie?" Ellison jerked his chin at the plate still waiting on Rodney's tray, and Rodney eyed it as if it might attack.

"Is everyone here nuts?" John asked. "Rodney was worried about the whole expedition getting high, but I thought --"

"Relax!" Blair patted the air, laughing. "No one's going to get high. The THC concentration is so low you'd barely feel a buzz after eating three or four of the whole fruits. Cooked up in a pie and divided among all the people here, you're not going to feel anything."

"But, Captain Ellison --" Rodney said weakly.

"Atypical reaction," Blair said.

"Everything gets whacked out by these senses," Ellison grumbled. "You should see me on cold medicine."

"So wait." John leaned across the table, pushing his unfinished spaghetti to one side. "You're an ex-cop with super senses, and you didn't recognize marijuana in that fruit?"

"The fruit doesn't smell or taste anything like hemp," Ellison said defensively. "The plants are completely unrelated -- they just happen to have a similar chemical inside."

"And you didn't recognize the effects, either?" John pressed.

"I've never taken the stuff myself!" Ellison protested. "Maybe hippie boy here has --" He mussed Sandburg's mop of curls.

"Hey!" Blair objected. "You know I don't mess my body up with that crap."

"No, just with peyote, and the occasional wild mushroom, maybe some ayahuasca . . ." Ellison teased.

"For the sake of anthropological research, maybe, but not, like, for recreation!" Blair said.

"What's that piece of pie doing on your tray, then? Smells pretty good," said Ellison, leaning toward Blair's dessert.

"I warned you what's gonna happen if you touch one forkful of that pie, man," Blair said darkly.

"Does it really taste that good?" John asked. Curious, he stuck out his fork and nipped the end off Rodney's pie piece.

"Get away from my food, you thief!" Rodney accused, pulling the pie closer to him. Then he ruined it by asking, "So how does it taste?"

"Mmm, it is pretty good," John said. "Not a really strong flavor, though. Sort of mild, like pears, maybe."

"It reminded me of star fruit," Ellison said wistfully.

Blair tested his own pie and nodded agreement. "Yeah -- smooth, but it has a tang to it."

"I don't feel a buzz, though," John said.

"Well, you wouldn't." Blair went to work on his dessert in earnest, and Rodney followed along more cautiously. "Like I said, the amount is very low."

"Beckett was talking about trying to find a way to concentrate it, though," Ellison mused.

"Mmm, yeah," said Blair. "He wanted to try the THC for pain control in some of his tougher cases, like maybe Colonel Caldwell."

"Or Major Lorne's headaches," Ellison added.

John shook his head in bafflement. "I'm starting to think everyone here really _is_ nuts. You really want your highest-ranking officers stoned all the time?"

"That's one way to give O'Neill a free hand," Rodney said indistinctly around a mouthful of pie.

"Come on, this isn't Vietnam," John began, but he was interrupted by someone calling, "Hey, John! Rodney!"

John turned. "Jennifer, hi there. Hey, no crutches?" He nodded toward her leg.

"Nope! I get to carry my own trays now." She thumped hers (which held only dirty plates) cheerfully onto the table and sat down next to John. "And I can climb stairs again, and next week I can try running, and after that I should be cleared to join Lieutenant Ford's Gate team."

"Good for you," said John, not about to mention his doubts concerning Ford as a team leader.

"Lieutenant Hailey, isn't it?" said Ellison. John looked up, thinking he caught something odd in the captain's voice.

"Yep!" she said. "Don't worry about introductions, I pick up names like _that_." She snapped her fingers to demonstrate. "Ooh, hey, you guys had some of that pie, huh? Isn't it great?"

"Sure. Did you get some?" John asked. She was a pretty small woman; maybe the effects of the fruit could explain her excessive cheeriness.

"Two slices!" she confided. Were her eyes a little glassy, maybe? "I was so glad to get off those damn crutches, I thought I deserved to celebrate."

Okay, so maybe she had other reasons to be cheerful.

"Lieutenant, I'm glad you stopped by," said Ellison. "We could use your input on something we've been discussing."

John thought the man sounded stiff, but he couldn't read anything in Ellison's expression. He glanced to Sandburg instead, who seemed puzzled but alert; he didn't know exactly what was going on, but he had some idea of what to expect.

"Sure, glad to help!" Hailey said airily. "What's up?"

"You have experience with the Earth/Asgard ships, is that correct?" Ellison asked.

"I worked on Prometheus, Daedalus, _and_ Odyssey while they were commissioning," Hailey said proudly.

"Well, McKay here has been talking about what he thinks might be salvaged from the Daedalus," said Ellison.

John blinked. Rodney certainly had been talking about that, off and on, but as far as he knew no one had been listening. Caldwell and some of the other Daedalus crew insisted the ship was too badly damaged to be useful. What could Hailey add to that?

"Hey, cool," she said, leaning forward to get a better view of Rodney across John. "What are you thinking, the Asgard transporter?"

Rodney looked baffled by the change in conversation as well, but he jumped in happily. "Possibly the transporter. Unfortunately it's a large target, and at least one crewmember insists it was damaged even before Hermiod was killed."

"Oh, that's too bad." Hailey was nearly draped across John's shoulder now, although her attention seemed to be entirely on Rodney.

"But we won't know for sure unless we go up there and check, that's my point," Rodney went on. "The hyperdrive is probably a complete loss, according to reports. But some of the shield generators might be intact, and you can imagine how useful those would be."

"Oh, yeah! We could mount them on the Gateships --" A loud clatter from the collection area for the dirty dishes interrupted Hailey.

Ellison leaned forward. "Hey, it's a little noisy in here, and we're all done eating. Why don't we move this conversation down the hall? The movie lounge should be quiet right now."

John ended up retrieving Rodney's and Hailey's trays as well as his own, since the two of them were completely wrapped up in their discussion. Blair stuck close to them, seeming fascinated by the subject even though John wouldn't have thought it was really in his line. Ellison ghosted silently behind, as if he were stalking prey. John was starting to get a really bad vibe here, but he had to trust his team leader, at least until he knew what was going on.

The movie lounge -- a big room with a DVD player hooked to one of the Ancient viewscreens, and various comfortable furniture hauled in from around the city -- was indeed empty. Hailey sprawled in a chair near the door, and Rodney hovered over her, gesturing excitedly.

"-- And Caldwell says one of the 302s was docked with only minor thruster damage," Rodney said.

"Oh, cool!"

He shrugged. "Of course, it was in the starboard fighter bay, which was pretty badly hit, so it could have taken extra damage afterward. But don't you think this stuff is worth checking out?"

"Definitely!" she enthused. "We could take up a Gateship when the Daedalus is at perigee and at least have a look around. It wouldn't be that hard."

"That's what I've been saying, but no one listens to me!" Rodney complained.

Blair had dropped back to stand by the door once they entered. Ellison, with a flick of his eyes, directed John toward the room's other exit. John obeyed despite his uneasiness.

Ellison approached the two who were still talking eagerly. "Lieutenant Hailey," he interrupted carefully. "There's something I've been wondering about. Maybe you could tell me."

"Hmm?" she asked amiably.

"How long have you been a spy for the Trust?"

Of course! John realized. She was a small woman, definitely smart enough to set up that transmitter, and she wasn't part of the original expedition. Naturally suspicion would settle on her. But how could Ellison be so sure? Wouldn't Cadman be an equally good suspect?

Rodney jumped back as if Hailey had turned into -- well, a snake. "What! Are you sure? No, she can't be!"

Ellison didn't glance at him, just kept his eyes fixed on Hailey. "We picked up the transmission you sent when the wormhole was open," he said in a silky voice that was almost but not really gentle. "You were pretty smart, using a part of the Gateship bay where no one goes, and covering up the camera. And since you were working right there on the control console, no one would notice if you typed one extra command on your laptop. Very smart. But you didn't think you had to worry about fingerprints, did you?"

Hailey was sitting up straight now, her easy flush turned to pale stiffness.

Ellison waved over his shoulder. "See, Sandburg and I are ex-cops. We spent a while working in forensics. We photographed those fingerprints. So we can prove it was you. There's no point denying it."

She gave one stiff jerk of her head that might have been a nod.

"How long?"

"Three months," she said, low and clipped.

"No," Rodney protested. "I don't believe it!"

"Rodney." John moved forward a little, still keeping between Hailey and the back exit. "Over here," he said softly.

"It has to be a mistake, don't you get it?" Rodney hissed as he came to stand next to John.

"What did they threaten you with?" Blair asked quietly.

She turned slowly toward him. "My mother. They sent me pictures -- Mom in the front yard, at the library, at the grocery store -- with crosshairs centered on her head. She has a weak heart. I couldn't even figure out how to warn her -- she'd be so upset . . ."

"Who's your contact?" Ellison asked.

She shook her head. "No one. We've never met. I get emails -- pages. Never the same address twice, and I can't trace them except that they're usually from inside the SGC."

"And they told you to volunteer when Colonel Sheppard was setting up a strike team to come here?" Blair pressed.

"I had five minutes' warning," she said. "Not even enough time to call Mom. God, if they did something to her while I've been gone --"

"They wouldn't," said Ellison. "Not while you're doing what they want."

"But you aren't, are you?" Rodney put in suddenly. "All that nonsense about Weir and Caldwell, and saying the ZPM here is nearly depleted -- that wasn't just because you don't know better. You were sending them misinformation!"

Hailey bowed her head and swallowed. "I tried. But it's hard to know what to say. If I make the expedition sound weak and disorganized, will they decide to ignore us or just try to place another spy here? And if they do try to place someone -- that's good if you catch them, but it's bad if they succeed. You see? I didn't know what to do!"

"So you weakened the encryption on your message to make it easier for me to decode it," said Rodney. "I thought that was too quick!"

She shrugged. "I didn't know if you'd notice the transmission at all. But I tried."

"So you'd be willing to help us?" Ellison said. "Set a trap for them?"

Her head came up at once. "Yes! I want you to catch them, catch all of them, wipe them out! As long as my mother is safe . . ." She swiped at her eyes.

"We've got time to set it up," Blair said slowly. "It will be a while before we contact Earth again, so we can work out a plan to net as many of them as possible."

"The problem will be letting the SGC know what we're doing," Ellison mused. "They'll have to do the legwork, but we can't warn them in advance."

"They might already know," said Rodney. "Some of it, at least. I know there have been suspicions about a plant inside the program for a long time. O'Neill -- General O'Neill, I mean -- wouldn't talk to me about it, but since I was a former victim myself I know they've been checking."

"What will happen to me?" Hailey asked in a small voice.

Ellison considered. "Confinement to quarters right now. No computer access. McKay, I need you to help me proof her room and rig her door so she can't open it. In the long term, it will be up to Caldwell and Weir to decide. I don't think you'll be kept confined, but you can forget about that Gate team assignment."

Hailey sighed. "I'll help any way I can."

"That will be taken into consideration. Come on, we'll escort you to your quarters now."

Hailey stood up and staggered. Ellison caught her with a grip that could be supporting, but could also turn into an arm lock in an instant.

"Whoa!" She giggled, then laughed. Then kept laughing. It was starting to sound a little hysterical, and she pressed a hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry, I-hi-hi-hi can't sssstop --"

"Take it easy," said Blair, coming up on her other side. "Deep breaths."

It made John think of sex. He supposed after a little time with Rodney, uncontrollable laughter would always make him think of sex. He had to work to keep his own face straight.

"It's the pie," said Rodney solemnly. And then John did laugh.

Hailey wasn't the only one affected; the halls of Atlantis rang with laughter most of the night, and quite a few people were caught kissing -- or more -- in inappropriately public places. Regardless of the vitamin content and the supposedly infinitesimal dose of THC, the 'Mary Jane' fruit wouldn't be making it onto the menus again.

At least, not the official menus.

* * *

 

A week later, they flew the Genii prisoners out to the island they'd checked out. John piloted the last of three Gateships, each one carrying ten prisoners. The high-profile prisoners were split between the other Gateships: Commander Kolya with O'Neill, and his deputy Tyrus with Ford's team in a Gateship flown by Lieutenant Markham. Team Ellison's ship didn't have any high-ranking prisoners except Tyrus' daughter Sora and a greasy-haired guy named Ladon.

John had heard various stories about what happened during the ten-day occupation and Colonel Sheppard's daring rescue, but he hadn't met any of the people involved yet. They didn't strike him as looking all that dangerous, but maybe the dumb act was part of their defense. The heavy green uniforms would be uncomfortable on a tropical island, but at least they's have plenty of raw material for loincloths and bikinis.

John kept the artifical gravity on for the ballistic portion of the flight, since they didn't want the prisoners floating around loose. Ellison wasn't completely satisfied with the measures taken to keep the Genii secured in the back, because O'Neill and Weir had both been reluctant to alter the fundamental structure of three valuable Gateships just for one ninety-minute hop. Normally Ellison would have sat in the co-pilot's seat next to John, but for this flight Rodney took the other front seat while the two ex-cops sat in the back with their seats swiveled around to watch the prisoners most of the time. John had asked if he should close the bulkhead door, but Ellison said it was better to keep an eye on the Genii, and Rodney said he didn't want them shut in the back with access to the Gateship's banks of crystals.

John could barely pick up on the signs of Ellison's discomfort with the artificial gravity, but he supposed the man didn't want to show any weakness in front of the prisoners. Nevertheless, once they had achieved re-entry and were cruising the last few hundred klicks to the island, John turned the inertial dampeners down to 20% to make it a little easier on his team leader. It wouldn't make a difference to anyone but Ellison, since they weren't planning any fancy maneuvers. John and O'Neill had played around briefly with formation flying, but Markham was only a Marine, so they weren't going to give the poor guy anything else to worry about on this flight. The three Gateships were simply following each other in an uneven line over the ocean, with John in the six o'clock position.

Rodney stretched out his souped-up PDA toward John with an odd expression on his face. John took it and found a message on the screen:

Prisoners are planning something. Expect an attempt to take us hostage when we land. Be ready. JE.

"Yeah, right, thanks Rodney," John said, as if the message were nothing important or surprising, and handed it back. He twisted to look at one of the smaller displays on his left side, and dropped his right hand down to check his sidearm where the prisoners couldn't see.

John almost wished that he, like Ellison and Sandburg, was carrying a Wraith stunner -- but the truth was, he wouldn't hesitate to use deadly force if the prisoners made trouble. He was also good enough to go for an arm or leg shot if need be. Neither of those applied to Rodney; he was carrying a zat gun, since he'd used one before and was having trouble getting used to the Wraith weapons in practice.

O'Neill's voice came over the radio so all could hear: "I've got the island in sight now. Landing in ten minutes."

And that -- not right after the landing -- was when all hell broke loose.

John's only warning was Ellison stiffening in the corner of his eye. He heard the prisoners move suddenly and the sound of their chain -- or maybe the hook that secured it -- snapping free under their combined force. Up ahead, he saw both the other Gateships go into unplanned maneuvers.

He jinked hard -- left, then right. With the inertial dampeners turned down, everyone felt it. The prisoners staggered and swore, tripping each other with their chains as they tried to catch their balance. Ellison and Sandburg, both strapped in their seats, were only delayed a moment in bringing their stunners up to aim. Then they sprayed the rear compartment with fire.

It was all over in seconds -- at least for Gateship three. The lead ship was still traveling in odd bumblebee loops. The middle ship went into a spectacular spin, lost altitude fast, skipped twice over the surface of the ocean, and sank without a trace.

"Everything secure back there?" John barked. He couldn't do anything to help the others if his own craft was still in danger.

"Clear," said Ellison promptly. "They're all down. Close the bulkhead door."

"No, don't!" Rodney objected. "There's important stuff back there. I don't want them messing with it when they wake up!"

John ignored the ongoing debate and keyed his radio. "Gateship One, this is Three. Two is down. What's your status?"

"We've had a little situation here, but we're getting it under control," O'Neill came back. He sounded as casual as ever, but there was something that sounded like a zat blast in the background. "Can you assist Two?"

"I'll see what we can do," John answered. He peeled away from the still-erratic path of Gateship One and spiraled down to where the other craft had disappeared into the ocean. His heads-up display obligingly showed the last known position of the Gateship Two, so he could pinpoint it exactly.

"Sheppard, if you're going to pull moves like that, turn the dampers back up," Ellison griped.

John glanced back to see Ellison and Sandburg kneeling over the stunned prisoners, apparently doing something extra to secure them. Ellison was braced against one of the bench seats; Blair was just picking himself up after apparently sprawling across an unconscious body.

"Sorry." John dialed up the inertial dampening as he brought the little ship down to hover over the water. "Are these things submersible to any significant depth?" he asked the air. He knew it didn't necessarily follow, just because they were space-worthy. The pressures involved under water were far higher.

"Grodin thinks they are, but there hasn't been time to test it," Rodney answered.

"I guess we're about to find out," John muttered. He adjusted his radio. "Gateship Two, this is Three. Markham, what's your status?"

Seconds passed in silence.

"Gateship Two, please respond," John repeated. He was trying to get the sensors to tell him where the other ship was under the water, but it wasn't working the way he thought it should. After a minute, a display came up that seemed to indicate the sensors were scanning the seafloor a piece at a time. Apparently they couldn't cover much area through the water.

"Gateship Two," John began again, doggedly, as he watched a 3-D plot of the rugged sea bottom taking shape on the HUD.

"Lieutenant Ford here," said a voice, out of breath.

John blew out a sigh. "Lieutenant, what's your status?"

"We're . . . underwater. Sinking. The prisoners tried to break free," Ford said. "We have two injured, including Lieutenant Markham."

John swore under his breath. They only had one person with the gene; if Markham was hurt badly, they wouldn't be coming back up soon.

"At least one dead and three injured among the prisoners. We've got them trapped in the back compartment, but they have Lanzetti's gun and I think they shot something important, because the ship was flying pretty strange just before we went down."

"No kidding," Rodney muttered in disgust, then "Hey, look!" A blinking dot had just appeared on the scan on the HUD. Numbers next to it indicated the depth; John concentrated until it changed to units he could understand. Over a hundred feet and still sinking.

"All the prisoners tried to break out at the same time," John told Ford. "Must have been pre-arranged. Ellison had a little warning, but not enough to let you guys know."

"What happened to Captain O'Neill?" Ford asked urgently.

"We're doin' fine," O'Neill answered for him. John saw Gateship One circling down nearby, flying steadily and cleanly. "Got it all under control now. Kolya said the signal was me warning you guys to prepare for landing."

John shook his head in disgust. Just after the landing -- as Ellison had guessed -- would have been a more sensible time to strike, but maybe Kolya had thought to take them by surprise by choosing a less obvious moment. How he'd expected to control the Gateships after disabling the pilots was a mystery, though. Maybe he'd thought threatening hostages would be enough -- after two weeks in Atlantis, he must surely know the Gateships couldn't be controlled without the Ancient gene.

"Unfortunately," O'Neill continued, "our back hatch is sprung and won't close all the way. No space travel or underwater trips for this baby until that's fixed."

"Whoa!" came Ford's voice suddenly.

"What is it?" O'Neill demanded.

"We just hit bottom. It's a little uneven -- uh-oh, we're rolling --"

John told the sensors to zoom in more closely on the position around Gateship Two. It certainly was uneven, and nearly at the edge of a cliff that led to much deeper water. They were about a hundred and fifty feet down -- definitely too deep for people to swim out and up to the surface, even if they hadn't had wounded.

"We've stopped now," said Ford. "I think we're stable. As long as those prisoners don't move around too much." He laughed nervously. "Good thing the artificial gravity is still working, or we'd have been tossed around like peanuts in a jar!"

"Do the Genii know you're underwater?" O'Neill asked.

"Yeah, we crashed before they got shut in the back."

"Is Markham unconscious?"

"No, sir, but he's hurt pretty bad. Sergeant Bates is trying to get the bleeding stopped. Do you need to talk to him?"

"I need him to talk to the Gateship. How's it holding up under the pressure?"

There was a pause; John could hear Markham's strained voice in the background. "He says the pressure's not a problem, sir," Ford came back after a minute. "We just have the initial damage to the drive pod crystals that made us crash in the first place. And maybe a little more damage from the landing, he's not sure. But we're not taking on water, and we should have enough air for a bit."

"Good," said O'Neill. "I'm not sure how long it'll take our guys to figure out how to get you out of there, but --"

"I know how to do it," Rodney interrupted, consulting schematics on his laptop. "I think. Sheppard, take us down there."

"Wait a second!" John protested.

"You sure you don't want to drop off your prisoners first?" O'Neill asked. "The island's less than fifty miles away."

"No no, we don't have time," Rodney said. "We have to get down there before something sends them over the edge of that cliff!"

"Cliff?" Ford said.

"We've got a scan of the area around the downed ship," John explained. "It does look pretty steep." He glanced around at Ellison, who was, after all, their team leader.

Ellison leaned forward. "Our prisoners are secured, Captain," he said. "And we didn't take any damage. If we have to do the rescue now, I think we can handle it. So long as McKay's idea works." He frowned at the scientist, but Rodney, typing madly on his computer, didn't notice.

"Yeah, but can we fit twenty people in here, even for a short trip?" Blair asked. "Maybe we _should_ drop the Genii off first, or at least transfer them to Jack's Gateship."

"We're not going to try an underwater transfer of the people from that ship," Rodney snapped. "That would be insane. These ships don't have shields -- although we have been discussing how one could be generated, using the same technology as the cloaking device --"

"Rodney," John reproved, trying to get him back on track.

"Yes, well . . . mo shields means no way to protect the people or the ships' interiors from the pressure of the water if we open the hatch. So instead, we need to lift their ship out with us." He stared at John. "Satisfied? What are you waiting for? Get down there!"

John looked at Ellison and got a nod. "We're ready to render assistance, sir," he reported to O'Neill. "Permission to, uh, submerge?"

"Do it," said O'Neill. "We'll drop off our load and get back here as soon as we can. Maybe Grodin can fix our hatch once the prisoners are out of the way."

"Yes, sir." John took a deep breath and brought the Gateship down carefully, as if trying to land on the surface. The water barely made the little ship wobble as it rose up past the viewscreen. And then they were down, and heading deeper.

It flew pretty much the same; with the inertial dampeners up all the way, John could barely feel their motion anyway. But he was aware that the ship answered a little more sluggishly when he told it to move. It reminded him oddly of riding Ellison's wooden surfboard in the lower-salt waves of this ocean.

The display on the HUD told him what to expect. This water was too deep for coral reefs, but he circled around the cone of an extinct volcano and kept diving deeper. There was no continental shelf here, just an underwater mountain range formed long ago.

Rodney paused in his typing and keyed his own radio. "Lieutenant Ford, this is Dr. McKay. Do you have an expedition laptop on board with you?"

There was a long pause. "Yeah, Markham brought his."

Rodney sighed in relief. "Good. Boot that up and make sure it's set for wireless receiving. When we get within range, I'm going to take control of that laptop and send it the program I just wrote. Then you'll have to hook it into the Gateship's control systems. I hope Markham is still conscious, because he's going to have to tell the Gateship to let me take control. And then I'll, hmm . . . " Rodney degenerated into annoyed mutters as he poked at the keys of his own computer.

"Rodney?" John asked. "Just how are you planning to get them out of there? These ships don't have, uh, tow cables or tractor beams, do they?"

"Nono, nothing like that. Well, maybe a little like that," Rodney amended. "No tractor beams, but they do have artificial gravity -- and from what Ford said, theirs iss still functioning."

John waited, but nothing more was forthcoming.

"How is artifical gravity going to help?" Blair asked, saving John the trouble.

Rodney looked at them blankly. "Well, gravity is an attractive force," he said.

John still wasn't getting it, and by the looks of the other members of his team, he wasn't the only one. "You're . . . going to attach their Gateship to ours with gravity?" he tried.

"Essentially, yes. The particular gravitational field generated by these Gateships is asymmetrical, and of course it doesn't extend very far outside the ship. Actually, it drops off almost like a magnetic force instead of a simple inverse square law. But I'm hoping to manipulate that . . . hmm." He frowned at his laptop and started typing again just as furiously as before.

"Dr. McKay?" Ford called over the radio. "We have the laptop booted up. You said we have to hook it into the Gateship's control systems?"

"Yes, because unfortunately we don't have the necessary interface or skills to program these ships directly." Rodney unsnapped his seatbelt and disentangled himself from the webbing. He started toward one of the control panels near the back of the front compartment, then paused. "Those people are secure, right?"

John glanced back. He hadn't had a chance yet to see what Sandburg and Ellison had done with the prisoners. The ten were arranged in pairs, sitting back to back on the floor in the middle of the compartment, with their hands bound behind their backs and bound to each other. They were all still unconscious -- or at least paralyzed, since John remembered someone saying that effect outlasted the stun -- and some were slumped uncomfortably in their bonds.

"We're watching them," Ellison said simply.

Rodney gave a nervous bob of his head and opened the panel directly behind the pilot's seat. "Okay, Lieutenant, I need you to tell me what cables and connectors you have available for the laptop."

John kept maneuvering the Gateship down through ever-darkening water, past a few bewildered schools of fish, while Rodney griped under his breath about how ill-prepared Ford's team was and how this would have been much easier if Hailey were on the other ship. Ellison made a comment about how Trust spies tended to be very useful right up until they stabbed you in the back. But mostly everyone stayed out of it while Rodney talked Ford through cobbling together a way to control the Gateship.

"Coming up on their position now," John warned. He asked the ship for a light, and the water around them was brilliantly illuminated.

"Oh boy," breathed Blair.

Gateship Two was indeed perched on the edge of a cliff. Above it was a fairly steep slope, with the sand or mud marked by the passage of the ship that had rolled down it. Below, with only the barest lip to define an edge, was a nearly sheer drop into black water. All that was keeping the little ship from rolling over that slight lip was its one protruding drive pod, which was propping it up. The other drive pod had either retracted or been sheared off somehow, so there was nothing else to prevent the craft from rolling freely.

"Well," said Rodney after a moment. "At least, uh . . . at least they're upside down, or nearly."

"That's _good_?" Ellison asked.

"The gravity generator is in the bottom of the Gateship," Rodney pointed out. "If we want them to hold on to each other, we need them belly to belly."

"Okay," John said, picturing the approach vector in his head. "I can do that. Now?"

Rodney shook himself and turned back to his work, talking while he typed. "No. I have to transfer my program to Markham's laptop first, and get it running. That will change the shape of the gravitational field so that it extends further outside the ship. But the gravity field generators will still have to be turned up to maximum on both ships."

"Won't that squash us?" Blair asked.

Rodney gave him an impatient look. "No, they're not designed to create a field that strong. But it will be uncomfortable. I think we should be able to get two or three gees out of them, assuming the field generator on the other ship wasn't damaged."

John winced. Three gees wasn't bad for a few seconds, but if they had to keep it going for a while, that would definitely be uncomfortable.

"Sandburg." Ellison jerked his head. "We'll need to move the prisoners."

"Right." Blair jumped up.

Rodney worked for a few minutes, swearing at his computer and at Ford over the radio. Finally he made a satisfied noise, and John jerked reflexively as something shifted in his inner ear. It felt more like some kind of tilt than a change in gravity, but John's pilot reflexes were telling him it was unnatural.

"What the hell is that?" Ellison said. "It feels like, like . . ."

"Like I'm being stretched," John said.

"It's just differential gravity," Rodney said dismissively. "I've diverted power to the field profile outside of the ship, so of course the field _inside_ the ship is weaker. The gravity at floor level is stronger than up near your head. It's essentially a tidal force across your body."

"You okay, Jim?" Blair asked intently.

Ellison tilted his head slowly and picked up his feet one at a time. "That is really strange."

"Go sit down again," said Blair. "I'll finish this up." He was arranging the prisoners to lie on their sides -- still bound back-to-back -- so they wouldn't shift around when the gravity got turned up. "Rodney, give us a little warning next time, okay man?" It was the closest thing to anger John had ever heard from Blair.

"Yes yes, of course," said Rodney, not paying much attention.

John sighed, guessing that he would need to mediate. "What are you working on now?" he asked.

"I'm seeing if I can get the other ship to make the same adjustment," Rodney said, and tapped his radio. "Ford, can you feel that?"

"Yeah, what is it?" A muffled thumping came from the background. "The Genii don't like it. I hope they're not causing any damage back there."

"Well, they'll probably like this even less," said Rodney, his hand hovering over the keyboard.

"Hold it," said Ellison, at the same moment John said "Hang on, Rodney."

John glanced at their team leader and continued, over the radio, "Ford, you'd better get your guys strapped in. Can Markham sit in the pilot's chair okay? I think that would be safer than the floor."

"Yeah, he's in his seat already. Bates, can you get Lanzetti up? Here, I'll help --" Ford grunted.

Rodney gave John a questioning look. "Can I do it yet?"

"No," Ellison snapped back. "Chief, get over here."

"I'm almost done." Blair adjusted Sora's position one more time and stepped nimbly over the bodies to get to his chair.

"Rodney, do you need to be sitting down for this?" John asked.

"I'm not adjusting _our_ gravity," Rodney said. "Not yet, anyway. I have to see how much I can get from the other system first."

"Okay. Ford, you guys ready yet?"

"Yeah, we're all set."

John looked to Ellison, who said, "Go ahead, McKay."

Three keystrokes and a pause, then Ford said in a strained voice, "Oh man, that's gonna be tough."

"Okay over there?" John asked.

"Yeah, we can take it -- I think. Shit, Markham looks like he's going to pass out. How long do we have to put up with this?"

"Until we get to land, I think," said John. "There's another small island closer than the one we were heading for, if you can't make it that far."

"Yeah, better go for that one." Ford groaned. "Damn. But at least the Genii aren't banging on the bulkhead anymore!"

"Right," said Rodney briskly. "Two point two gees, that seems to be all their generator can handle. Get us into position next to them, John."

Since Gateship Two wasn't exactly upside down but tilted at an angle, John had to tilt their ship correspondingly. He'd gotten used to not feeling acceleration because of the inertial dampeners, but it was odd in a different way to hang steady at an angle without changing his sense of which way was "down." It seemed as if the whole underwater mountainside was tilting instead. Then there was the continuing strangeness of the tidal-force thing Rodney had dismissed so easily, and even John's iron stomach was getting a little bit doubtful about the whole thing.

He felt it when they got close to the other ship -- it was as if something was pulling them in. "Whoa," he protested, moving away reflexively.

"What is it?" Rodney demanded at once.

John shook his head. "Just the other ship's gravity, I think. Feels weird." He remembered how his flying instincts had misled him in the other universe, on the low-gravity planet. He forced himself to treat it like instrument flying: line the two ships up and bring his bird -- fish? -- straight in, and ignore the itch of warning in his palms.

There was a quick jerk that only John, connected to the ship's systems, could feel -- then, with a clunk, the two ships were belly-to-belly.

"Okay, that's it," said John. "The joy of Gateship sex."

Blair snorted. Rodney was too busy to pay attention, and Ellison was probably still distracted by the weird gravity -- which was only going to get worse.

Rodney tapped at his computer. "All right," he said. "It's working, but right now the force between the two ships is barely enough to overcome gravity, even with the buoyancy of the water helping us out. That's not good enough. I'm going to have to raise our field to maximum, just as I thought."

"Shouldn't you be in your seat first?" John asked.

"Yes yes, I'm setting up a ten-second delay." Rodney hit a few more keys. "Starting now." He disconnected his laptop from the control panel and hurried to his seat, getting his straps hooked up just in time.

The increase was gradual, and felt to John as if they were thrusting upwards. Their chairs moved to compensate, reclining to cradle them against the powerful downward force. The control sticks adjusted too, so that John could still reach them -- but he had to look between his knees to see the heads-up display. It still showed them in the same spot nestled against the other Gateship, and not blasting into space the way his senses were insisting. In fact, blasting into space (which John had done three times now) was a lot easier than this.

Rodney grunted, stretching a heavy hand toward the front console. He used the contact to call up a new, complicated plot which revolved on the windscreen: the two Gateships wrapped about in lines of force. "Two point eight gees for us," Rodney panted.

"Jim. Jim, you okay?" Blair asked.

Ellison didn't answer.

"It's working," Rodney gasped. "There's enough force between them to keep the two ships together, as long as you don't make any sudden maneuvers or move too fast through the water."

"Jim?"

John craned his head backward with an effort, trying to get a good look at Ellison. "Is he in trouble?"

"He's still breathing," Blair said, but he sounded worried. "I think he's just zoned out."

It was almost normal for the Ancient Gateships: John found a new display appearing before he even realized he wanted it. Heartrate, respiration, blood pressure and blood oxygen levels for each team member popped up in a corner of the screen. Ellison's readings looked fine, but he still wasn't responding to Blair's questions.

"All right," said John with more confidence than he felt. "We're going to do this. Blair, you tell me if Ellison's in trouble. Ford, let us know about Markham. I'll try to stop if we have to."

"Markham's out of it," said Ford. "But if this is the only way to get him to medical help, I say get it over as fast as you can."

"Right," John acknowledged. With Ellison unresponsive, Ford could technically be considered in command. The Marine lieutenant was right, anyway; they had to try now or give it up. "Here goes nothing."

John pulled his Gateship up and over, essentially trying to roll their disabled companion up the hill so the two ships were level. This way the second Gateship was still partly resting on the hillside; if the gravity-tow idea didn't work and the two ships broke apart, hopefully Two would stop again at the edge of the cliff and they'd be no worse off than before.

It seemed to work; the two ships moved smoothly without shifting against each other. When his craft was level and directly above the other one, John took a deep breath. "So far, so good: now we try for prize number two." Gingerly, he pulled straight up.

Both ships rose through the murky water.

"Yesss!" Rodney hissed, still short of breath but jubilant nonethless.

"You did it, Rodney," said John with a grin. "Pretty damn brilliant, if you ask me. Now we just have to hope it keeps working -- that's the grand prize."

"It will work," Rodney promised. "Just take it slow."

"Slow and easy." John called up a map of the shortest route to the little island nearby. They would stay underwater most of the way, so the water would help support part of the weight of the disabled ship.

Ford's Gateship had sunk to its resting place in a little over five minutes, and John, following in a more controlled manner, had descended almost as fast. Going the other way took more than half an hour. Ford was worried about Markham's raspy breathing, and Rodney was worried when he realized the second Gateship's gravity generator was weakening. John just held onto the control sticks and kept moving, slow and steady. He did try to keep them above a level patch of seafloor whenever possible in case the other ship fell, and he let out a breath of relief when they reached water that was only about fifty feet deep, where people might be able to swim to the surface. But even then, he kept moving until his windscreen broke into air just a hundred yards from a beach of dark volcanic sand. He skimmed the tops of the waves, keeping the upside-down Gateship in the water as long as possible.

It wasn't until they got the two ships to the beach that they discovered the flaw in Rodney's plan. He had to clamber out of his seat and crawl to the rear control panel carrying the equivalent of three hundred extra pounds. _Then_ he had to stand and connect his laptop's leads to the crystals with muscles trembling in exhaustion, and type in one command --

\-- and they could all breathe again.

Rodney gave a small whimper and sank to his knees in the blessedly-normal gravity. Blair immediately undid his straps so he could move to Ellison's side.

"Rodney, don't forget the other guys," John urged. "You need to turn their gravity down too." He felt lightheaded with relief. Also lightfooted and lightfingered and light-everythinged. He'd never really appreciated the beauty of one single gee. Earth had such a _sensible_ gravity -- enough, but not too much. How come he'd never realized that before?

Rodney groaned and levered up to his feet again. "First -- before you disengage, try to roll them over. So they'll be upright when they come out of the hatch."

John did his best, tipping the other Gateship in the direction of its retracted drive pod so it would move more freely, then pulling his own ship sharply away while the other was still rolling. John's port-side drive pod dug a deep furrow in the sand, but the other ship ended up only slightly tilted from normal, so he counted that as a win. Then he warned Ford they were about to change the gravity again.

Ellison was coming around and pushing the fussing Blair away from him by the time John settled down for a mostly-normal landing on the sand. Some of the prisoners were making noises too, and they didn't sound very happy.

Ellison loomed over Ladon and scowled down at him. "There are injured people in the other Gateship," he said. "Some of yours and some of ours. Now, we can stun you all again and drag you out of our way and _then_ go help the others. Or we can go now without any bother. Which one sounds better to you?"

"We won't interfere," Ladon said sullenly. Sora turned her face towards the floor, frowning fiercely.

One by one, they all stepped over the prisoners and out onto the dark sand. Rodney was groaning about pulled muscles in his legs, but he kept the complaints quiet enough that Ellison didn't try to shut him up.

Since Markham was unconscious, they needed John's Ancient gene to open the other ship's hatch. John yanked Rodney out of the way of a waving gun when the ramp down. The would-be shooter was immediately brought down by a pair of stunner blasts, and a moment later so was everyone else still standing in the rear compartment.

"Ow!" Rodney protested, pushing John off of him. "Now you've thrown my back out, too!"

"Yeah, I'm really sorry for saving you from that bullet, Rodney," John retorted as he brushed the oddly soft gray sand from his pants.

"Ohhh, my knees are killing me!" Rodney tried to get up and ended up staggering sideways to lean against the Gateship hatch. "Definitely did something to that knee," he said, carefully bending and straightening his right leg.

"We just have to get these guys sorted out, and then we can go home," John promised him.

The Gateship was a bloody mess, with equipment scattered around and panels torn out of the walls; the Genii had apparently been looking for weapons, first aid, or a way to disable the ship. Maybe all three. As Ford had said, one of the prisoners was dead already, his brains splattered over a bench. Another had a sucking chest wound and wasn't likely to last long enough to get back to Atlantis. A third, a woman, had a through-and-through on her upper arm that had bled pretty generously but wasn't immediately life-threatening, and one other had a bullet graze along his ribs plus a concussion and possible neck injury.

Once the Genii were subdued or moved out of the way, Ellison hit the control for the bulkhead to the front compartment. It turned out to be almost as much of a mess as the rear, although at least there hadn't been deliberate sabotage. Lanzetti had taken a bullet in the thigh, but the bleeding was mostly stopped now. Markham had an ugly-looking gut wound and was still unconscious, although his breathing had improved once the gravity was turned back to normal.

O'Neill's team showed up in time to help them move people around. Healthy Genii were quickly dumped on the beach, whether stunned or tied up; wounded people went in John's Gateship. Markham went in the seat Blair had occupied, immediately behind the pilot. There was some discussion about whether Lanzetti or the Genii with the chest wound (apparently Sora's father Tyrus, and she kicked up a monumental fuss when she found out) should go in the second seat. They decided to put Tyrus there so they could monitor his vitals. The numbers were bad, but John didn't need fancy Ancient sensors to tell him the guy was dying.

Cadman had also been hurt -- a blow to the head which had knocked her out for a few minutes. She insisted she was fine now, but O'Neill pushed her onto the fast transport. With the back hatch still damaged on Gateship One, they could expect to take the better part of a day getting back to Atlantis, since they would have to keep to low altitude and subsonic speeds. And they wouldn't even start the trip until they'd gotten the remaining prisoners transferred to the island -- which they could do more quickly if there was one less person taking up space. So Cadman would be going back to Atlantis with Team Ellison.

Finally John took off with a shipload of injured and exhausted. Blair and Cadman were tasked with security, while Ellison -- who had some medical training, in addition to his unique senses -- went from one patient to another, bandaging or re-bandaging or just checking their status.

John was pretty good by now at adjusting the ship's controls for varying situations. They weren't on a ballistic flight path this time; he would keep the drive pods running at full power after they cleared the atmosphere, until it was time to slow for re-entry. That meant he also had to keep the inertial dampeners going, but he could reduce the gravity for at least part of the flight to make things easier on their patients. He tried twenty percent, but Ellison said it was making the blood in Tyrus' lungs froth up more, so John compromised on fifty percent.

He could feel it in his own muscles; his back and neck had been strained by half an hour at three gees, and the lower gravity was a relief. Rodney was still complaining about his legs, even though he wasn't using them at the moment. John resolved to make sure his partner got checked by a doctor when they reached Atlantis, even though he knew the infirmary was bound to be chaotic. Rodney always complained, no matter how small his grievance, but when it reached a certain level John knew the problem was real.

He had guessed that the shortest possible flight time between the island and Atlantis would be a little over an hour. He made it in just under fifty minutes, and everyone was still alive when he handed them over to medical care.

* * *

A week later, John carried a late-night dinner (or maybe a midnight snack) down to the labs to distract Rodney from his latest project. The food was a pretty decent attempt at enchiladas on the part of the cooks, even though half the ingredients had been improvised. Rodney, in true Canadian style, claimed it was too spicy and burned his mouth -- but, in true McKay style, he ate it anyway.

"Beckett says those two Genii can go back to the island anytime," John said. "Not Tyrus -- he's going to be stuck in bed a long time. I mean the other two."

Rodney grunted and forked up a long string of cheese, eyed it doubtfully, then stuffed it in his mouth.

"O'Neill figures we can combine the trip with trying to salvage the damaged Gateship," John continued. "That means he'll want me along as a second pilot, and probably you to help with the repairs as well. And _that_ probably means Ellison will want us all to go." The ex-cop was determined the team should work together, even when only one or two of them were needed for a particular job.

Rodney grunted again. "That drive pod isn't going to be easy to fix. O'Neill had better take plenty of spare parts."

"I think Grodin was planning to ask you about it. Maybe tomorrow, if he hasn't already."

Rodney turned from his empty plate to his water glass, gulping huge swallows with a meaningful look to let John know he still thought the food was too spicy. Then he raised his eyebrows expectantly.

John produced a cookie, studded with what the cooks claimed were chocolate chips. Since John knew all the solid chocolate on Atlantis had run out more than a year ago, and the powdered cocoa that came through the wormhole with Colonel Sheppard was finished up by the brownies served the day they dialed Earth, he figured this was either carob or some Pegasus-galaxy equivalent. Not that anyone on the expedition was likely to turn their nose up at carob by now. John had eaten his own cookie on the way here (having learned his lesson about letting Rodney get all the dessert), and the chocolate things tasted mostly okay -- a little bitter, a little chewy, with a coffee-like aftertaste. He was interested to see what Rodney would make of them.

Rodney seemed to think the choco-stuff was pretty good. Maybe it was the coffee-like taste. As soon as the cookie was gone and before Rodney could get wrapped up in his work again, John produced his next weapon of distraction.

"I also got this," said John, holding up a lump of one of the cancerous "Mary Jane" fruits.

Rodney blinked.

"Want some candy, little boy?" John leered, waving the fruit around.

"Where did you get that?"

"It pays to be nice to people, Rodney. There was some left after the pies. Come on, let's go to bed."

"What? No!" Rodney looked automatically toward his laptop. "I'm working on a --"

"Rodney, tomorrow's Friday. Remember what that means? Exploration day? That building you think is a factory is the next one on the schedule."

Rodney's eyes widened. "But I'm still too stiff. Beckett said I should rest my knees --"

"For a week. Which ended yesterday. Now it's time for gentle exercise. And this building doesn't have as many stairs as most of them do. But if you want us to check out the factory without you . . ."

"You rat. You're not exploring a factory without me. Who knows what Blair would concluded the machinery is for -- give me that!" Rodney grabbed for the fruit which had been bobbing in front of his face, and John held it out of reach. "What makes you think I need an aphrodisiac, anyway? You think I'm getting old?"

"I think you're too wrapped up in your work, Rodney. Anything that helps me distract you is fair game." John retreated to the transporter, still holding the fruit away from Rodney, then let him snatch it away while John pressed the node he wanted. The diversion worked; they were nearly at the door before Rodney realized they were in the wrong corridor.

"Where are we?" Rodney demanded belatedly, swallowing his last bite of fruit. "This isn't --"

John skipped ahead a few steps and waved at the door sensor. "Welcome to your new home!" he said in cheesy-announcer tones. "Full bathing facilities for showers or soaks, enough room for a _real_ bed, and of course, a spectacular view of, you guessed it, the towers of Atlantis!"

Rodney was staring at the desk in the corner.

John cleared his throat, dropping back to a normal voice. "I, uh, I thought you might like it. The cultural group finished with it a couple days ago. They decided it was a glass harmonica, just like you thought."

Rodney touched the device cautiously, and it spun to life with mellow blue and green lights.

"They already got it powered back up," John said unnecessarily, "but one of them -- a Dr. Corrigan? -- said the mechanism could probably use some cleaning and adjustments. I thought you'd rather do that yourself than, uh . . ."

Rodney pressed a pastel-colored key, and it sang out a single sweet note. He pressed a second key for a euphonious chord.

"So, yeah. I remembered what you said about how you used to play the piano, and how you still need to work on your fine muscle control, so I thought maybe this could be like a kind of therapy."

Rodney was still staring down at the instrument, his face completely still.

"If you don't like it, I can take it away," John ventured. He was getting close to babbling here, but it was just so strange to see Rodney with no expression on his face. It was unnatural, unsettling.

Without looking away from the crystal harmonica, Rodney reached out a hand and snagged a chair. He rolled it up to the desk in the corner, sat down, and began to play. First a cautious thread of melody, then a little bit of counterpoint, until finally he had a multi-voiced fugue weaving in and out, back and forth. Here and there a sour note sounded or the music grew too complex for the slow-damping echoes of the instrument, but Rodney learned the instrument quickly and tailored his playing to its capabilities. The music was amazing, uplifting, breathtaking.

John reclined on their beautiful new big bed, enjoyed the music, and waited for the aphrodisiac to kick in.


End file.
